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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spirit of Sweetwater, by Hamlin Garland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Spirit of Sweetwater
+
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2007 [EBook #20695]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPIRIT OF SWEETWATER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Yingling, Diane Monico, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net. (This book was produced from scanned
+images of public domain material from the Google Print
+project.)
+
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+
+
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+
+
+LADIES' HOME JOURNAL
+LIBRARY OF FICTION
+
+THE SPIRIT OF
+SWEETWATER
+
+BY
+
+HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+AUTHOR OF
+WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
+MAIN-TRAVELED ROADS
+PRAIRIE SONGS, ETC.
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+CURTIS PUBLISHING
+COMPANY
+
+NEW YORK
+DOUBLEDAY &
+McCLURE CO.
+
+Copyright, 1898, by
+HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+
+
+TO
+JESSIE VIOLA
+AND
+HARRIET EDITH GARLAND
+
+[Illustration: Hamlin Garland]
+
+
+
+
+_THE MYSTERY OF MOUNTAINS_
+
+
+       _As the sun sinks
+    And the canons deepening in color
+      Add mystery to silence
+    Then the lone traveller lying out-stretched
+    Beneath the silent pines on some high range
+    Watches and listens in ecstasy of fear
+      And timorous admiration._
+
+   _In the roar of the stream he catches
+    The reminiscent echo of colossal cataracts;
+      In the cry of the cliff-bird
+    He thinks he hears the eagle's scream
+    Or yowl of far-off mountain-lion;
+      In the fall of a loose rock
+    He fancies the menacing footfall of the grizzly bear;
+    And in the black deeps of the lower canon
+      His dreaming eyes detect once more
+    Prodigious lines of buffalo crawling snake-wise
+        Athwart the stream,
+      Or files of Indian warriors
+    Winding downward to the distant plain,
+      Where camp-fires gleam like stars._
+
+
+
+
+Part I
+
+
+
+
+The Spirit of Sweetwater
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+One spring day a young man of good mental furnishing and very slender
+purse walked over the shoulder of Mount Mogallon and down the trail to
+Gold Creek. He walked because the stage fare seemed too high.
+
+Two years and four months later he was pointed out to strangers by the
+people of Sweetwater Springs. "That is Richard Clement, the sole owner
+of 'The Witch,' a mine valued at three millions of dollars." This in
+itself was truly an epic.
+
+Sweetwater Springs was a village in a canon, out of which rose two
+wonderful springs of water whose virtues were known throughout the
+land. The village was wedged in the canon which ran to the mighty
+breast of Mogallon like a fold in a king's robe.
+
+The village and its life centered around the pavilion which roofed the
+spring, and Clement spent his evenings there in order to see the
+people, at least, as they joyously thronged about the music-stand and
+sipped the beautiful water which the Utes long, long ago called "sweet
+water," and visited with reverence and hope of returning health.
+
+Since the coming of his great wealth Clement had not allowed himself a
+day's vacation, and he had grown ten years older in that time. There
+were untimely signs of age in his hair and in the troubled lines of
+his face. He was a young man, but he looked a strong and stern and
+careworn man to those whose attention was called to him. He was a
+conscientious man, and the possession of great wealth was not without
+its gravities.
+
+For the first time he felt it safe to leave his mine in other hands.
+He had a longing to mix with his kind once more, and in his heart was
+the secret hope that somewhere among the women of the Springs he might
+find a girl to take to wife. He arranged his vacation for July, not
+because it was ever hot at the Creek, but because he knew the Springs
+swarmed at that time with girls from the States. It would have
+troubled him had any one put these ideas into words and accused him of
+really seeking a bride.
+
+He was a self-unconscious man naturally, and he hardly realized yet
+how widely his name had gone as the possessor of millions. He supposed
+himself an unnoticed atom as he stood at the spring on the second
+night of his stay in the village. Of a certainty many did not know
+him, but they saw him, for he was a striking figure--a handsome
+figure--though that had never concerned him. He was, in fact, feeling
+his own insignificance.
+
+He was standing there in shadow looking out somberly upon the streams
+of people as they came to take their evening draught at the wonderful
+water of the effervescing spring. The sun had gone behind the high
+peaks to the west, and a delicious, dry coolness was in the canon.
+
+It seemed to Clement to be a very fashionable and leisurely throng--so
+long had he been absent from people either modish or easeful. He felt
+himself to be hopelessly outside all this youth and brilliancy and
+merriment, and he looked upon it all with a certain wistfulness.
+
+He perceived at length that the strollers were not all of the same
+conditions. There were rough, brown cow-boys from La Junta and Cajon,
+and miners in rough dress down from the gulches for a night, but
+mainly the promenaders appealed to him with elegance of dress and
+manner.
+
+Many of the ladies came without hats, which added to the charm of
+their eyes and hair. Some of them looked twice at the tall man with
+the big mustache and broad hat, who seemed to be watching for some
+tardy friend.
+
+As he studied them his memory freshened and he came to understand them
+better. He analyzed them into familiar types. This was a banker and
+his wife from some small town--the wife fussy and consequential, the
+husband coldly dignified. This group was composed of a doctor and his
+daughters. Behind them came a merchant from some Nebraska town--he
+rough of exterior, his children dainty of dress and very pretty.
+Occasionally a group of college-bred girls came up without
+escort--alert, self-helpful and serene. They saw Clement at once, and
+studied him carefully as they drank their beauty cup at the circular
+bench before the spring. All good-looking men had interest to them.
+
+All classes came, a varied stream, yet they were Western, and of the
+well-to-do condition for the larger part.
+
+The deft boy swung the glasses of water on his tripartite dipper with
+ceaseless splash and clink. There was a pleasant murmur of talk in
+which an Eastern listener would have heard the "r" sound
+well-defined. There were many couples seated about the pavilion on the
+benches and railings. It was all busy yet tranquil. Each loiterer had
+fed, had taken his draught of healing water--and this was the hour of
+pleasant gossip and repose. Clement fell at last to analyzing the
+action of the boy who supplied the water at the pool. He slammed the
+glasses into the pool, and set them on the bench with a click as
+regular as a pump. Occasionally, however, he was indifferent. With
+some of his customers he handled the glasses as if they contained
+nectar, thus indicating his generous patrons. Once he stopped and
+dipped the glass into the pool with his own hand--a doubtful
+action--and extended it with a bow to a young lady who said "thank
+you" so sweetly that he blushed and stammered in reply.
+
+All this fixed Clement's attention, and as the young girl lifted the
+glass in her slim hand he wondered how she had escaped his notice for
+a single moment. A woman at his side said sighfully, "There is that
+consumptive girl again, she hasn't long to stay." She was as pale, as
+fragile, and as lovely as the mountain columbine. Her face was thin,
+and her head shapely, but her eyes! They burned like rarest
+topaz--deep, dark and sad. Clement shivered as he felt them fixed upon
+him, and yet he could not turn away as he should have done.
+
+He gazed at her with a sudden feeling which was not awe, nor
+compassion, nor love, but was all of these. He felt in his soul the
+subtlest sadness in all the world--the sadness of a strong man who
+looks upon a beautiful young girl who is dying.
+
+Extremest languor was in every movement. She was dressed in dark, soft
+garments--very simple and graceful in effect, and her bearing was that
+of one accustomed to willing service from others. Her smile was as sad
+as her eyes which had in them the death-shadow.
+
+Clement's action, the unwavering self-forgetful intentness of his
+look, arrested her attention, and she returned his gaze for an
+instant, and then turned away and took the arm of an elderly gentleman
+who stood beside her. She moved slowly, as an invalid walks when for
+the first time she is permitted a short walk in the outdoor air,
+leaning heavily on her companion.
+
+The big miner roused himself and stood straight and tall, hesitating
+whether to follow or not--a sudden singular pain in his heart, as if
+he were losing something very close to his life.
+
+He obeyed the impulse to follow, and moved down the path, just out of
+reach of observation, he fancied. As he made way through the crowd he
+grew aware again of his heavy limbs, of his great height, of his
+swinging, useless hands. It had been so long since he had mingled with
+a holiday company, he appeared as self-conscious as a boy.
+
+Once the fair invalid turned and looked back, but she was too far away
+for him to discern the expression of her face. He was not possessed
+of self-esteem enough to believe she had turned to look for him.
+
+He followed them in their slow pace till they turned in at the doorway
+of the principal hotel of the village. They entered at the ladies'
+door while he kept on to the main entrance and rotunda. There was no
+elevator in the house, and the invalid paused a moment before
+attempting the stairway. It was pitiful to see her effort to make
+light of it all to her companion, who was quite evidently her father.
+She smiled at him even while she pressed one slim hand against her
+bosom.
+
+Clement longed to take her in his arms and carry her up the
+stairway--it seemed the thing most worth doing in all the world--but
+he could only lean against the desk and see them go slowly stair by
+stair out of sight.
+
+"Who are they?" he asked of the clerk whom he detected also watching
+them with almost the same breathless interest.
+
+"Chicago merchant, G. B. Ross. That's his daughter. She's pretty far
+gone--consumption, I reckon. It looks tough to see a girl like that go
+off. You'd think now----"
+
+Clement did not remain to hear the clerk moralize further; he went
+immediately to his own hotel, paid his bill, and ordered his baggage
+sent to the other house. He wondered at himself for this overpowering
+interest in a sick girl, and at his plan to see her again.
+
+He reasoned that he would be able to see her at breakfast time,
+provided she came down to breakfast, and provided he hit upon the same
+hour of eating. He began to calculate upon the probable hour when she
+would come down. It was astounding how completely she occupied his
+thought already.
+
+He struck off up the canon where no sound was, other than the roar of
+the wild little stream which seemed to lift its voice in wilder clamor
+as the night fell. Its presence helped him to think out his situation.
+He had grown self-analytical during his life in the camp, where he
+was alone so far as his finer feelings were concerned, and he had come
+to believe in many strange things which he said nothing about to any
+friend he had.
+
+He had come to believe in fate and also in intuition. A powerful
+impulse to do he counted higher than reason. That is to say, if he had
+a powerful impulse to run a shaft in a certain direction he would so
+act, no matter if his reason declared dead against it. The hidden and
+uncontrollable processes of his mind had given him the secret of "The
+Witch's" gold, had led him right in his shafting and in his selection
+of friends and assistants--and had made him a millionaire at
+thirty-seven years of age. He was prone to over-value the intuitional
+side of his nature, probably--an error common among practical men.
+
+Fate was, with him, luck raised to a higher power. What was to be
+would be; the unexpected happened; the expected, hoped for, labored
+for, did not always happen. All around him men stumbled upon mines,
+while other men, more skilful, more observant, failed. The luck was
+against them.
+
+It was quite in harmony with his nature that he should be absorbed in
+the singular and powerful impulse he had to seek an acquaintance with
+that poor dying girl.
+
+Dying! At that word he rebelled. God would not take so beautiful a
+creature away from earth; men needed her to teach them gentleness and
+submission. More than this, he had an almost uncontrollable impulse to
+go to her, and putting aside doctors say to her:
+
+"I am the one to heal you."
+
+He had never had an impulse to heal before, but the fact that it was
+unaccountable and powerful and definite, fitted in with his successes.
+He gave it careful thought. It must mean something because it had
+never come to him before, and because it rose out of the mysterious
+depths of his brain.
+
+She must not die! The wind, the mountains, the clear air, the good,
+sweet water, the fragrant pines, the splendid sun--these things must
+help her. "And I, perhaps I, too, can help her?"
+
+Back in the glare of the hotel rotunda, with its rows of bored men
+sitting stolidly smoking, idly talking, his impulse and his resolution
+seemed very unmanly and preposterous. It is so easy to lose faith in
+the elemental in the midst of the superficial and ephemeral of daily
+habit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Clement was an early riser, and, notwithstanding his restless night,
+was astir at six. The whole world had changed for him. It was no
+longer a question of ore and amalgams, it was a question of when he
+should see again that sad, slender woman with the hopeless smile.
+
+He had now a great fear that she would not be able to come down to
+breakfast at all, but as her coming was his only hope of seeing her he
+clung to it. Eight o'clock seemed to him to be the latest hour that
+any one not absolutely bedridden would think of breakfasting, and at
+four minutes past the hour he entered the dining-room.
+
+The negro waiter tried to seat him near the door, but he pushed on
+down the hall toward a little group near one of the sunny windows,
+which he took to be the sick girl and her father, and so it proved.
+
+His seat at a table next to theirs brought her profile between him
+and the window, and the light around her head seemed to glorify her
+till she shone like a figure in a church window. She seemed not
+concerned with earth. He was more deeply moved than ever before in his
+life, but he concealed it--the only sign of emotion was in the tremor
+of his hands.
+
+He studied the sick girl as closely as he could without seeming to
+stare. She was even more lovely than he had thought. His eyes,
+accustomed only to rough women, found in her beauty that which was
+flower-like, seraphic.
+
+Her face was very thin, and her neck too slender to uphold the heavy
+masses of her brown hair. Her hands were only less expressive of
+suffering than her face. The father was as bluff and portly and
+irascible as she was patient and gentle. He bullied the waiter because
+he did not know how else to express his anxiety.
+
+"Waiter, this steak is burned--it's hard as sole leather. Take it back
+and bring me----"
+
+"Please don't, father; the trouble is with me. I have no desire for
+food." She smiled at the waiter so sweetly that he nodded as if to
+say, "I don't mind him, miss."
+
+The father turned his attention to the country.
+
+"Yes, there is another fraud. I was told it would help your appetite,
+and here you are with less than when you left Hot Springs. If I'd had
+my way----"
+
+She laid a hand on his arm, and when he turned toward her his eyes
+were dim with tears. He blew his nose and coughed, and looked away
+after the manner of men, and suffered in silence.
+
+Once she turned and looked at Clement, and her eyes had a mystical,
+impersonal look, as though she saw him afar off, not as an individual
+but as a type of some admirable elemental creature. He could not
+fathom her attitude toward him, but he thought he saw in her every
+action the expression of a soul that had relinquished its hold on
+things of the earth. Her desire to live was no longer personal. She
+did all that she did for her father and her friends wholly to please
+them.
+
+The desire to aid her came upon Clement again--so powerful it carried
+with it an unwavering belief that he could help her.
+
+What was his newly-acquired wealth good for if he could not aid her?
+Wealth? Yes--his blood! He looked at his great brown hand and at his
+big veins full of blood. Why should she die when he had so much life?
+
+Meanwhile his common sense had not entirely fled him. He perceived
+that they were not poor, and he reflected that they had probably tried
+all climates and all the resources of medical science; also that the
+father had quite as much red blood in his veins as any other man; and
+these considerations gave him thought as he watched them rise and go
+out upon the little veranda.
+
+Clement was not a markedly humble person under ordinary conditions.
+He had a fashion of pushing rather heedlessly straight to his
+purpose--which now was to speak to her, to meet her face to face, to
+touch her hand and to offer his aid. Naturally he sought the father's
+acquaintance first. This was not difficult, for the waiters in the
+dining-room had been pointing him out to the guests as "Mr. Clement,
+the meyonaire minah." The newspaper correspondents had made his name a
+familiar one to the whole United States as "one of the sudden
+multi-millionaires of Gold Creek."
+
+The porter had "passed the word" to the head waiter, and the head
+waiter had whispered it to one or two others. It was almost as
+exciting as having a Presidential candidate enter the room. Clement
+was too new in his riches, however, to realize the extent of all this
+bustle about him.
+
+When he rose to go one waiter removed his chair, another helped him
+lay his napkin down, a third brushed his coat, and the head usher
+kindly showed him where the door opened into the hallway. It was
+wonderful to Clement, but he laid it to the management of the hotel.
+
+There were limits to his insanity, and he did not follow the girl out
+on the veranda, but when Mr. Ross came down a few minutes later to get
+a cigar Clement plucked the proprietor of the hotel by the arm.
+
+"Introduce me to Mr. Ross, won't you?"
+
+The landlord beamed. "Certainly, Mr. Clement." He took Mr. Ross by the
+lapel familiarly. "Ah, good-morning, Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross, let me
+introduce my friend, Mr. Clement; Mr. Clement you may have heard of as
+the owner of 'The Witch' and the 'Old Wisconse.'"
+
+Mr. Ross shook hands. He was not exactly uncivil, but he was
+cool--very cool. "I have heard of Mr. Clement," he said. He softened a
+little as he got a good look at the powerful, clear-eyed young fellow.
+
+The landlord expanded like one who has accomplished a good deed. "I
+thought so, I thought so. Mr. Clement, let me say, is a square
+business man. Whatever he offers you is worth the price!" He winked at
+Clement as he turned away.
+
+Clement began, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Ross, for taking this liberty,
+but I wanted to know you and took the first chance that offered. I
+have no mine to sell--I want to know you--that's all. I wanted to meet
+somebody outside the mining interest. I saw you and your daughter at
+the pavilion last night. She seems to be not--very strong." He
+hesitated in his attempt to describe his impression of her.
+
+The father's theme was touched upon now. "No, poor girl, she is in bad
+condition, but I think she's better. The air seems not to have made
+her worse, at any rate. I haven't much faith in climate, but I believe
+she has improved since we left Kansas City and began to rise."
+
+He had a marvelous listener in Clement, and they consumed three
+cigars apiece while he told of the doctors he had tried and of the
+different kinds of air and water they had sought.
+
+His eyes were wet and his voice was tremulous.
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Clement, she don't seem to care about living--that's
+what scares me. She's just as sweet and lovely as an angel. She
+responds to any suggestion, 'Very well, papa,' but I can see she does
+it for me. She herself has lost all hope. It ain't even that--she has
+lost care about it. She is indifferent. She is going away from me just
+because I can't rouse her----"
+
+He frankly broke down and stopped, and Clement felt his throat swell
+too tight for speech at the moment.
+
+They sat for a time in silence; at last Clement said:
+
+"Mr. Ross, you don't know me except as a lucky man--but I have a favor
+to ask: it is to meet your daughter."
+
+There was something very winning in the young man's voice and manner,
+and Mr. Ross could see no objection to it, and it might interest
+Ellice to meet this man who had stumbled upon a gold mine. "Very well,
+suppose we go up now," he said, almost without hesitation.
+
+The girl was alone, seated in an easy-chair in the sun--her head only
+in shadow. The father spoke in a low and very tender voice, "Ellice, I
+want to present Mr. Clement. Mr. Clement, my daughter Ellice."
+
+The impossible had come to pass! As Clement bent down and took her
+hand and looked into her eyes his heart seemed to stop death-still for
+a few seconds--then something new and inexplicable took possession of
+him, and he stood before her calm and clear-eyed. "Don't move," he
+commanded, "I will draw a chair near you."
+
+Mr. Ross said they had been having a long talk, and she listened,
+smiling the while that hopeless smile. Then the father rose and said:
+"Where is Aunt Sarah? I want to go down to the telegraph office."
+
+The girl spoke in the quiet, tranquil voice of one to whom such things
+have no importance. "I don't know, papa. A moment ago she was saying
+something to me, and now she is gone. That is all I know. Never mind;
+she'll be here in a moment."
+
+"I'll be back in ten minutes."
+
+"I am all right, papa. If I need anything Mr. Clement can call Aunt."
+
+There was a pause after Mr. Ross went. Then she added in the same
+gentle, emotionless way: "Poor papa! He is a martyr to me. He thinks
+he must sit by me always. I think he fears I may die while he is
+gone."
+
+Clement leaned forward till his eyes were on a level with those of the
+girl, and his voice was very calm and penetrating as he said:
+
+"What can I do for you, Miss Ross? I have the profoundest conviction
+that I can do you good."
+
+A startled look came into the big brown eyes. She looked at him as a
+babe might, striving to comprehend.
+
+He went on, "Here I am a millionaire, a strong young man--what can I
+do for you?"
+
+"I think I understand you," she said slowly. "It's very good of you,
+but you can do nothing."
+
+"It is impossible," he broke forth in answer, and his voice gave her a
+perceptible shock. "There must be something I can do. If it will help
+you there is my arm--its blood is yours." He stammered a little. "It
+isn't right that one so young and beautiful should die. We won't let
+you die. There must be something I can do. This wind and sun--and the
+good water will work with us to do you good."
+
+His voice moved her, and she smiled with the tears on her lashes. "It
+does me good just to look at you. You are so big and brown. I saw you
+at the spring last night. Perhaps I have come at last----" She
+coughed--a weak, flat sound which made him shudder.
+
+She tried to reassure him. "Really, I have coughed less than at any
+time during the last five months."
+
+He faced her again. "Miss Ross, I felt last night a sudden desire to
+help you. I believed I had the power to help you--I don't know
+why--I'm not a healer." He smiled for the first time. "But I felt
+perfectly sure I could do you good. I feel that way now. I never had
+such a feeling toward any person before. It is just as strange to me
+as it is to you."
+
+She was looking at him now with musing eyes.
+
+"That is the curious part of it," she said. "It doesn't seem strange
+at all. It seems as if I had been wanting to hear your voice--as if I
+had known of you all my life----" She tried to suppress her coughing,
+and he was in agony during the paroxysm. The nurse came hurrying out,
+and while he waited at one side Clement felt that if he could have
+taken her by the hands he could have prevented it. It was a singular
+conviction, but it was most definite, and had a peculiar air of
+actuality.
+
+When she lay quiet he approached again and said: "I'll go now. I must
+not tire you. But remember, I'm going to come and see you, and I'm
+going to do you good. Every time I see you I am going to will to you
+some of my vitality--my love of life. For I love life--it is beautiful
+to live."
+
+She gave him her hand, and he bowed and left her.
+
+She lay quietly after he went away and smiled, a little, wan smile,
+which made her pallor the more pitiful. It was all so romantic and
+wonderful--this big man's coming. He was so unspoiled and so direct of
+manner. She had the hope he would come again, and it seemed not
+impossible that he might help her, his voice was so stirring and his
+hands so big and strong.
+
+Yet she was beyond the reach of even the conjectures of passion. She
+had come to a certain exterior resignation to her fate. The world had
+lost its poignant interest--it was now a pageant upon which she was
+looking for the last time, yet she was too tired, too indifferent to
+lift her hand to stay it in its course even had it been within her
+power.
+
+At times, however, she rebelled at her fate. There were hours, even
+yet, when she lay alone in her bed hearing her father's regular
+stertorous breathing till a great wave of longing to live swept upon
+her, and she was forced to turn her face to her pillow to stifle her
+mingled coughing and sobbing.
+
+"Oh, Father, let me live! I want to live like other women. Oh, dear
+Father, grant me a little life!"
+
+These waves of passionate rebellion left her weaker, sadder, more
+indifferent than ever, and as coldly pallid almost as if death had
+already claimed her.
+
+On the night following Clement's talk with her she fell asleep while
+musing upon one mind's influence upon another. Perhaps if she could
+only believe she might be helped; perhaps he was sent to help her. It
+had been long since such a personality had stood before her--indeed,
+no such man had ever touched her hand or looked into her eyes.
+
+He came down out of the mountain heights with the elemental vigor of
+wind and sun and soil about him like an aura. A man of great natural
+refinement, he had grown strong and simple and masterful in his close
+contact with Nature. The clay that might have brutalized another
+nature had made him a mystic.
+
+There was something mysterious in his eyes, in the clasp of his hand.
+The world was all inexplicable to her anyhow. Perhaps God had sent him
+to help her just as He sends healing water down from the mountain
+peaks.
+
+In thinking these things she fell asleep, and it seemed at once that
+she was well again, and that she was dressing for a walk. Clement had
+called for her to climb the mountains with him, and she was making
+preparation to go, working swiftly and unhesitatingly--and it seemed
+deliciously sweet to be swift and active once more. She had put on a
+short walking-skirt and leggins and was nearly ready. She stood before
+the glass to put on her cap, and as she saw how round and pink her
+cheeks were she hardly recognized herself.
+
+She seemed to hear his impatient feet outside on the veranda, and she
+smiled to think how typical it all was of husbands and wives--and at
+that thought her face grew pinker and she turned away--she didn't want
+her own eyes to see how she flushed.
+
+But suddenly all warmth--all flushing--left her. She turned cold with
+a familiar creep and weakness. She could not proceed. Her glove was
+half on, but her strength was not sufficient to pull it further. She
+could not lift her feet.
+
+His steady, strong tramp up and down the veranda continued, but she
+was in the grasp of her old enemy. A terrible fear and an agony of
+desire seized her. She wanted to go out into the bright sunlight with
+him, but she could neither move nor whisper. All her resolution, her
+hope, fell away, and her heart was heavy and cold. It was all over. He
+would wait for a while and then go away, and she would stand there
+desolate, helpless, inert as clay, with life dark and empty before
+her.
+
+"Oh, if he would only call me!" was her last breath of resolution.
+
+Once, twice the feet went up and down the veranda. Then they paused
+before her door.
+
+"Are you ready?" his voice called.
+
+She struggled to speak, but could only whisper, "Yes."
+
+The door swung quickly open and he stood there in the streaming
+sunlight of the morning--so tall he was he seemed to fill the
+doorway--and he smiled and extended his hands.
+
+"Come," he said, "the sturdy old mountains are wonderfully grand this
+morning."
+
+His hand closed over hers, and the sunlight fell upon her, warming her
+to the heart, but before she could lift her eyes to the shining peaks
+she awoke and found that the morning sun had stolen its way through a
+half-opened shutter and lay upon her hand.
+
+At first she was ready to weep with sadness and despair, but as she
+thought upon it she came to see in the dream a good omen. It had been
+long since she had dreamed a vision of perfect health with no touch of
+impotence at its close. There was something of hope in this vision; a
+man's hand had broken the spell of weakness.
+
+
+
+
+Part II
+
+
+
+
+_APRIL DAYS_
+
+
+    _Days of witchery subtly sweet,
+    When every hill and tree finds heart,
+    When winter and spring like lovers meet
+    In the mist of noon and part--
+        In the April days._
+
+    _Nights when the wood-frogs faintly peep--
+    Tr-eep, tr-eep--and then are still,
+    And the woodpeckers' martial voices sweep
+    Like bugle-blasts, from hill to hill,
+        Through the breathless haze._
+
+    _Days when the soil is warm with rain,
+    And through the wood the shy wind steals,
+    Rich with the pine and the poplar smell,--
+    And the joyous soul like a dancer, reels
+        Through the broadening days._
+
+               _--From "Prairie Songs."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+This dream gave to Clement, in Ellice's eyes, a glamour of mystery and
+power--beyond the subtlety of words, and she met him in a spirit of
+awe and wonder, such as a child might feel to find one of its
+dream-heroes actually beside the fireside in the full sunlight of the
+morning. The fear and agony and joy of the night's vision gave a
+singular charm to the meeting.
+
+It startled her to find she still retained the capability of being
+moved by the sound of a man's voice. It seemed like a wave of
+returning life.
+
+Her heart quickened as she saw him enter the dining-room and look
+around for her--and when his eyes fell upon her a light filled his
+face which was akin to the morning. She did not attempt to analyze
+the emotion thus revealed, but she could not help seeing that he
+looked the embodiment of health and happiness.
+
+He wore a suit of light brown corduroy with laced miner's boots, and
+they became him very well.
+
+He smiled down at her as he drew near.
+
+"You are better this morning, I can see that."
+
+It was exactly as if he knew of her dream, and that the walk had been
+actual, and a flush of pink crept into her face--so faint it was no
+one noticed it--while it seemed to her that her cheeks were scarlet.
+What magic was this which made her flush--she whom Death had claimed
+as his own?
+
+Mr. Ross invited Clement to sit with them, as she hoped he would.
+Clement had, indeed, intended to force the invitation. "I'm going for
+a gallop this morning," he said in explanation of his dress. "I wish
+you could go too," he added, addressing Ellice.
+
+Mr. Ross introduced him to the elderly woman: "Mr. Clement, let me
+present you to my sister, Miss Ross."
+
+Miss Ross was plump like her brother, and a handsome woman, but
+irritable like him. She complained, also, of the altitude and of the
+chill shadows. Neither father nor aunt formed a suitable companion for
+the sick girl.
+
+Clement was the antidote. His whole manner of treatment was of the
+hopeful, buoyant sort. He spoke of the magnificent weather, of the
+mountains, of the purity of the water.
+
+"After I get back from my ride I wish you'd let me come and talk with
+you. Perhaps," he added, "you'll be able to walk a little way with
+me."
+
+He made the breakfast almost cheerful by his presence, and went away
+saying:
+
+"I'll be back by ten o'clock and I shall expect to find you ready for
+a walk."
+
+Miss Ross was astonished both at his assurance and at Ellice's
+singular interest and apparent acquiescence.
+
+"Well, that is a most extraordinary man. I wonder if that's the
+Western way."
+
+"I wish I were able to do as he says," the girl said quietly. The old
+people looked up in astonishment.
+
+"Aunt Sarah, I want you to help me dress. I'm going to try to walk a
+little."
+
+"Not with that man?" the aunt inquired in protest.
+
+"Yes, Aunt." Her voice was vibrant with fixed purpose.
+
+"But think how you would look leaning on his arm."
+
+"Auntie, dear, I have gone long past that point. It doesn't matter how
+it looks. I cannot live merely to please the world. He has asked me,
+and if I can I will go."
+
+Mr. Ross broke in, "Why, of course, what harm can it do? I'd let her
+lean on the arm of 'Cherokee Bill' if she wanted to." They all smiled
+at this, and he added, "The trouble has been she didn't want to do
+anything at all, and now she shall do what she likes."
+
+It all seemed very coarse and common now, and she could not tell them
+the secret of the dream that had so impressed her, and of her growing
+faith that this strong man could help her back to health and life. She
+only smiled in her slow, faint way, and made preparation to go with
+him who meant so much to her.
+
+He met her on the veranda in a handsome Prince Albert suit of gray
+with a broad-brimmed gray hat to match. He looked like some of the
+pictures of Western Congressmen she had seen, only more refined and
+gentle. He wore his coat unbuttoned, and it had the effect of draping
+his tall, erect frame, and the hat suited well with the large lines of
+his nose and chin. It seemed to her she had never seen a more striking
+and picturesque figure.
+
+"I'll carry you down the stairs if you'll say the word," he said as
+they paused a moment at the topmost step.
+
+"Oh, no. I can walk if you will give me time."
+
+"Time! Time is money. I can't afford it." He stooped and lifted her in
+his right arm, and before she could protest he was half way down the
+stairway. He laughed at the horrified face of the aunt. He was
+following impulses now. As they walked side by side slowly--she, not
+without considerable effort--up toward the spring, he said abruptly,
+but tenderly:
+
+"You must think you're better--that's half the battle. See that
+stream? Some day I'm going to show you where it starts. Do you know if
+you drink of that water up at its source above timber-line it will
+cure you?"
+
+She saw his intent and said, "I'm afraid I'll be cured before I get to
+the spring."
+
+"I'm going to make it my aim in life to see you drink at that pool."
+His directness and simplicity stimulated her like some mediaeval
+elixir. He made her forget her pain. They did not talk much until they
+were seated on one of the benches near the fountain.
+
+"Sit in the sun," he commanded. "Don't be afraid of the sun. You hear
+people talk about the sun's rays breeding disease. The sun never does
+that. It gives life. Beware of the shadow," he added, and she knew he
+meant her mental indifference. They had a long talk on the bench. He
+told her of his family, of himself.
+
+"You see," he said, "father had only a small business, though he
+managed to educate me, and, later, my brother. But when he died it had
+less value, for I couldn't hold the trade he had and times were
+harder. I kept brother at college during his last two years, and when
+he came out I gave the business to him and got out. He was about to
+marry, and the business wouldn't support us both. I was always
+inclined to adventure anyway. Gold Creek was in everybody's mouth, so
+I came here.
+
+"Oh, that was a wonderful time; the walk across the mountains was like
+a story to me. I liked the newness of everything in the camp. It was
+glorious to hear the hammers ringing, and see the new pine buildings
+going up--and the tent and shanties. It was rough here then, but I had
+little to do with that. I staked out my claim and went to digging. I
+knew very little about mining, but they were striking it all around
+me, and so I kept on. Besides"--here he looked at her in a curiously
+shy way--"I've always had a superstition that just when things were
+worst with me they were soonest to turn to the best, so I dug away. My
+tunnel went into the hill on a slight upraise, and I could do the work
+alone. You see I had so little money I didn't want to waste a cent.
+
+"But it all went at last for powder and the sharpening of picks, and
+for assaying--till one morning in August I found myself without money
+and without food."
+
+He paused there, and his face grew dark with remembered despair, and
+she shuddered.
+
+"It must be terrible to be without food and money."
+
+"No one knows what it means till he experiences it. I worked all day
+without food. It seemed as if I must strike it then. Besides, I took a
+sort of morbid pleasure in abusing myself--as if I were to blame. I
+had been living on canned beans, and flapjacks, and coffee without
+milk or sugar, and I was weak and sick--but it all had to end. About
+four o'clock I dropped my pick and staggered out to the light. It was
+impossible to do anything more."
+
+There were tears in her eyes now, for his voice unconsciously took on
+the anguish of that despair.
+
+"I sat there looking out toward the mountains and down on the camp.
+The blasts were booming from all hills--the men were going home with
+their dinner-pails flashing red in the setting sun's light. It was
+terrible to think of them going home to supper. It seemed impossible
+that I should be sitting there starving, and the grass so green, the
+sunset so beautiful. I can see it all now as it looked then, the old
+Sangre de Christo range! It was like a wall of glistening marble that
+night.
+
+"Well, I sat there till my hunger gnawed me into action. Then I
+staggered down the trail. I saw how foolish I had been to go on day
+after day hoping, hoping until the last cent was gone. I hadn't money
+enough to pay the extra postage on a letter which was at the office.
+The clerk gave me the letter and paid the shortage himself. The letter
+was from my sister, telling me how peaceful and plentiful life was at
+home, and it made me crazy. She asked me how many nuggets I had found.
+You can judge how that hurt me. I reeled down the street, for I must
+eat or die, I knew that."
+
+"Oh, how horrible!" the girl said softly.
+
+"There was one eating-house at which I always took my supper. It was
+kept by an Irish woman, a big, hearty woman whose husband was a
+prospector--or had been. 'Biddy Kelly's' was famous for its 'home
+cooking.' I went by the door twice, for I couldn't bring myself to go
+in and ask for a meal. You don't know how hard that is--it's very
+queer, if a man has money he can ask for credit or a meal, but if he
+is broke he'll starve first. I could see Biddy waiting on the
+tables--the smell that came out was the most delicious, yet
+tantalizing, odor of beef-stew--it made me faint with hunger."
+
+His voice grew weak and his throat dry as he spoke.
+
+"When I did enter, Dan looked up and said respectfully, 'Good-evenin',
+Mr. Clement,' and I felt so ashamed of my errand I turned to run.
+Everything whirled then--and when I got my bearings again Dan had me
+on one arm and Biddy was holding a bowl of soup to my lips."
+
+The girl sighed. "Oh, she was good, wasn't she?"
+
+"They fed me, for they could see I was starving, and I told them
+about the mine--and, well, some way I got them to 'grub-stake' me that
+night."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That is, they agreed to furnish me food and money for tools and share
+in profits. Dan went to work with me, and do you know, it ended in
+ruining them both. We organized a company called the 'Biddy Mining
+Company.' I was president, and Dan was vice-president, and Biddy was
+treasurer. Biddy kept us going by her eating-house, but eventually we
+wanted machinery, and we mortgaged the eating-house, and the money
+went into that hole in the ground. But I knew we would succeed. I
+could hear voices call me, 'Come, come!'--whenever I was alone I could
+hear them plainly."
+
+His eyes, turned upon her, were full of mystery.
+
+"I have always felt the stir of life around me in the dark, and there
+in that mine--after we struck the spring of water--I thought I heard
+voices all the time in the plash of the water. I suppose it seemed
+like insanity, for I ruined Dan and Biddy without mercy. I couldn't
+stop. I was sure if we could only hold out a little while we would
+reach it. But we didn't. Biddy had to go to work as a cook, and Dan
+and I went out to try to borrow some money. I couldn't bear to let in
+somebody else after all the heat and toil Dan and Biddy and I had
+endured, but it had to be done. We took in a fellow from Iowa by the
+name of Eldred and went to work again.
+
+"One day after our blast I was the first to enter, and the moment that
+I saw the heap of rock I knew we had opened the vein. My wildest
+dreams were realized!"
+
+"And then your troubles ended," the girl said tenderly.
+
+"No--for now a strange thing happened. The assayer tried our ore again
+and again and found it very rich, but when we shipped to the mills we
+got almost no returns. We tried every process, but the gold seemed to
+slip away from us. Finally I took a carload and went with it to see
+what was the matter. I followed it till it came out on the
+plates--that is where they catch the gold by the use of quicksilver
+spread on copper plates--and it seemed all right. I scraped some of it
+up and put it into a small vial to take home with me. When I got home
+the company assembled to hear my report, and when I took out the
+amalgam to show it to them it had turned to a queer yellow-green
+liquid. I was astounded, but Dan and Biddy crossed themselves. 'It's
+witch's gold,' Biddy said. 'Dan, have no more to do with it.' And
+witch's gold it was. They gave up right there and went back to work in
+the camp. Eldred cursed me for getting him into it, and so they left
+me to fight it out alone. I was like a monomaniac--I never thought of
+giving up. I begged a little money from my brother and bought in all
+the stock of the 'Biddy Mining Company,' and went to work to solve the
+mystery of the amalgam. I was a good pupil in chemistry at college,
+and I put my whole life and brain into that mystery and I solved it. I
+found a way to treat it so all the gold was saved. That made me rich.
+I called the mine 'The Witch,' and it has made me what you see."
+
+"It is like a fairy tale! What became of your faithful friends, Dan
+and Biddy?"
+
+"I made Dan my foreman of the mine, and I built an eating-house and
+hotel for Biddy. They are with me yet. Eldred I bought out on the same
+terms as the rest."
+
+He had a sudden sensation of heat in his face as he passed the chasm
+between the withdrawal of Dan and Biddy from the firm and his solution
+of the amalgam. He did not care to dwell upon that, because Eldred had
+sued him to recover his stock, claiming that it was bought in under
+false pretenses. Neither did he care to enter into the stormy time
+which followed the sudden leap of "The Witch" from a haunted hole in
+the ground to a cave of diamonds. He hurried on to the end while she
+listened in absorbed interest like a child to a wonder story.
+
+She sighed in the world-old manner of women and said:
+
+"And I--I have done nothing worth telling. I ruined my health by
+careless living at school, and here I am, a cumberer of the earth."
+
+Some men would have hastened to be complimentary, but Clement remained
+silent. He was trying to understand her mood that he might meet it in
+a helpful way.
+
+"But if I am permitted to live I shall be different. I will do
+something."
+
+"First of all, get well," he said, and his words had the force of a
+command. "Give me your hand."
+
+She complied, and he took it in a firm clasp. "Now I want you to
+promise me you'll turn your mind from darkness to the light, from the
+canons to the peaks--that you will determine to live. Do you
+promise?"
+
+"I promise."
+
+"Very well. I shall see that you keep that promise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+It was rather curious to see that as she grew in strength Clement lost
+in assertiveness--in his feeling of command. He began to comprehend
+that with returning health the girl was not altogether pitiable. She
+had culture, social position and wealth.
+
+The distinction of his readily-acquired millions grew to be a very
+poor possession in his own mind--in fact, he came at last to such
+self-confessed utter poverty of mind and body that he wondered at her
+continued toleration. He ceased to plead any special worthiness on his
+own part and began to throw himself on her mercy.
+
+As the time came on when she no longer needed his arm for support he
+found it hard to offer it as an act of gallantry. In fact, in that
+small act was typified the change which he came ultimately to assume.
+At first she had seemed to him like an angelic child. Death's shadows
+had made him bold--but now he could not deceive himself: he was coming
+to love her in a very human and definite fashion. He dared not refer
+to the past in any way, and his visits grew more and more formal and
+carefully accounted for.
+
+She thought she understood all this, and was serenely untroubled by
+it. She brooded over the problem with dreamful lips and half-shut
+eyes. She was drifting back to life on a current of mountain air
+companioned by splendid clouds, and her content was like to the
+lotus-eater's languor--it held no thought of time or tide.
+
+That she idealized him was true, but he grew richly in grace. All the
+small amenities of conduct which he once possessed came back to him.
+He studied to please her, and succeeded in that as in his other
+ventures. He did not exactly abandon his business, but he came to
+superintend his superintendents.
+
+However, he attached a telephone to his mine in order to be able to
+direct his business from the Springs. He still roomed at the hotel,
+though Ellice was living in a private house farther up the canon. His
+rooms were becoming filled with books and magazines, and he was
+struggling hard to "catch up" with the latest literature.
+
+If Ellice referred to any book, even in the most casual way, he made
+mental note of it, and if he had read it he re-read it, and if he had
+not read it he secured it at once.
+
+"I know something of chemistry and mineralogy, and geology and milling
+processes, but of art and literature very little," he said to her
+once. "But give me time."
+
+The highest peaks were white with September snows before she felt able
+to mount a horse. Each day she had been able to go a little farther
+and climb a little higher. Her gain was slow, very slow, but it was
+almost perceptible from day to day.
+
+Mr. Ross had been to Chicago, and was once more at the Springs. He
+had brought a couple of nieces, very lively young creatures, who
+annoyed Clement exceedingly by their impertinence--at least, that is
+what he called their excessive interest in his affairs. Without the
+co-operation of Ellice he would have found little chance to see her
+alone, but she had a quiet way of letting them know when she found
+them a burden, which they respected.
+
+One day he said to her, "Have you forgotten what I said to you about
+the spring up there?"
+
+"No, I have not forgotten. Do you think I can go now? Am I really well
+enough to go?"
+
+"The time has come."
+
+"What would the doctor say?"
+
+"The doctor--do you still heed what he says?"
+
+"Must I walk?"
+
+"Yes, to have the water heal you. But I will lead old Wisconse for you
+to ride down."
+
+"After I am healed?"
+
+"One can be cured and yet be tired."
+
+They set off in such spirits as children have, old Wisconse leading
+soberly behind.
+
+Clement was obliged to check the girl.
+
+"Now don't go too fast. It is a long way up there. I warn you it is
+almost at timber-line."
+
+But she paid small heed to his warning. She felt so light, so active,
+it seemed she could not tire.
+
+For a time they followed the wide road which climbed steadily, but at
+last he stopped.
+
+"Now here we strike the trail," he said. "You must go ahead, for I am
+to lead the horse."
+
+"Not far ahead," she exclaimed, a little bit alarmed.
+
+"Only two steps." He was a little amused at her. "Just so I will not
+tread on your heels."
+
+"You needn't laugh. I know they hunt bears up here."
+
+They climbed for some time in comparative silence.
+
+"Oh, how much greener it is up here!" she exclaimed at last, looking
+around, her eyes bright with excitement.
+
+He smiled indulgently. "You tourists think you know Colorado when
+you've crossed it once on the railway. This is the Colorado which you
+seldom see."
+
+She was in rapture over the glory of color, the waving grasses of
+smooth hillsides, and the radiant dapple of light and shadow beneath
+the groves of vivid yellow aspens. The cactus and Spanish dagger, and
+the ever-present sage bush of the lower levels, had disappeared,
+crow's-foot and blue-joint grasses swung in the wind. The bright flame
+of the painted cup and the purple of the asters still lighted up the
+aisles of the pines in sheltered places.
+
+"There are many more in August," he explained. "The frost has swept
+them all away."
+
+"Is this our stream?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, we cross it many times."
+
+"How small it is."
+
+"Are you tired?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+He came close to her to listen to her breathing. "You must not do too
+much. If you find yourself out of breath stop and ride."
+
+"I want to be cured."
+
+He laughed. "By the way you lead up this trail I don't think you need
+medicine. I never finish wondering whether you are the same girl I met
+first----"
+
+She flashed a glance back at him. "I'm not. I'm another person."
+
+"That shows what three months of this climate will do."
+
+"Climate did not do it."
+
+"What did?"
+
+"You did." She kept marching steadily forward, her head held very
+straight indeed.
+
+"I wish you would wait a moment," he pleaded.
+
+"I am very thirsty--I want to reach the spring."
+
+"But, dear girl, you can't keep this up."
+
+"Can't I? Watch me and see."
+
+She seemed possessed of some miraculous staff, for she mounted the
+steep trail as lightly as a fawn. Clement was in an agony of
+apprehension lest she should overdo and fall fainting in the path.
+This ecstasy of activity was most dangerously persistent.
+
+It was past noon when they came out of the aspens and pines into the
+little smooth slope of meadow which lay between the low peaks which
+were already crusted with snow. In the midst of the orange and purple
+and red of the grasses lay a deep, dark pool of water--as beautiful as
+her eyes, it seemed to him.
+
+"Here is the spring," Clement called to the girl.
+
+"I knew it," she said.
+
+"Wait," he called again. "I must drink with you."
+
+He hastened up and dipped a cup into the water and handed it to her.
+
+"Now drink confusion to disease."
+
+"Confusion!" She drank. "Oh, isn't it sweet? I never knew before how
+good water was. But here, drink. You are dying of thirst, too." She
+handed him the cup.
+
+"I want to drink to some purpose also," he said, and there was no need
+of further words, but he went on, his full heart giving eloquence to
+his lips, "I want to pledge my life to your service--my life and all I
+am."
+
+She grew a little pale. This intensity of emotion awed her as the
+majestic in Nature affects great souls. "I don't think you ought. I
+don't think I am quite worthy."
+
+"Let me be judge of that." He spoke quickly and almost sharply. "Shall
+I drink?"
+
+She had walked on while Clement was speaking, and stood leaning
+against the browsing horse. After a little hesitation she answered,
+"If you are thirsty."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The words were light, but he understood her. He drank and then came
+straight toward her.
+
+She shrank from him in sudden timidity and said a little hurriedly,
+"Help me into the saddle. I shall need to ride back."
+
+
+
+
+_WESTWARD VISTA_
+
+
+        _The half-sunk sun
+    Burns through the dusty-crimson sky;
+    Streamers of gold and green soar
+    In radiating splendor, like the spokes
+    Of God's unmeasurable chariot-wheels
+    Half-hid and vanishing.
+    Around me is coolness, ripeness and repose;
+    The smell of gathered grain and fruits,
+    And the musky breath of melons fills the air.
+    The very dust is fruity, and the click
+    Of locusts' wings is like the close
+    Of gates upon great stores of wheat.
+    The gathered barley bleaches in shock,
+    The corn breathes on me from the west,
+    And the sky-line widens on and on
+    Until I see the waves of yellow-green
+    Break on the hills that face the snow and lilac peaks
+    Of Colorado's mountains._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+At first Clement's happiness had no further base of uneasiness than
+the lover's fear of loss. It all seemed too good to be true, and he
+had a hidden fear that something might happen to set him back where he
+was before she came. It was quite like his feeling about his mine--it
+took him a certain length of time before he ceased to dream of its
+sudden loss, and now it seemed (when absent from her) that it would be
+easy for something to rob him of this love which was his life.
+
+This feeling was mixed, too, with a feeling of his unworthiness, which
+deepened the more closely he studied her. She was so free from all
+bruise and stain of life's battle. There were no questionable places
+in her life. Could he say as much?
+
+Whenever he asked himself the question his dealings with the
+stockholders of "The Biddy" came into his mind. Could he afford to
+tell his bride all the facts in the case? This feeling of
+dissatisfaction with himself led him to do many extravagant things. He
+presented her with beautiful and costly jewels for which she had
+little taste.
+
+"Why, Richard. What made you think of that?" she said once after he
+had slipped away to the city to buy her something.
+
+"Is it so very pretty?"
+
+"It is beautiful! But can we afford such things?"
+
+"We can afford anything that will make you happy."
+
+He made a similar answer when she drew back a little startled at the
+cost of the house he had contracted for.
+
+"Why, it is a palace!"
+
+"The best is scarcely good enough for you." After a moment he added,
+"You see, I know you can never live East again, and I want you to
+have all the comforts of a palace out here. And so long as 'The Witch'
+holds out you shall have your heart's desire."
+
+Mr. Ross had come to have a profound respect for his future
+son-in-law. "I can't say that he don't make as much of a fool of
+himself as any prospective bridegroom, but he is a business man at the
+same time. He don't lose his head, by any means." He was telling his
+son about Clement. "He is devoted to your sister, but I went over to
+his mine with him the other day and it is perfectly certain that he
+understands his business. He is only reckless when buying things for
+Ellice. He'll take care of her and the mine, too."
+
+Clement felt a certain incongruity every time he put on his miner's
+dress and went through the mine. "I'm too rough for her, too old," he
+kept thinking--trying to conceal the real cause of his growing fear.
+
+He was not honest with himself. He fought round the real point of
+danger. He gave a generous sum to the library, aided a hospital, and
+did other things which should ease a bad conscience, and yet do not.
+He hastened the house forward, and passed to and fro between his mine,
+the Springs and the city in ceaseless activity.
+
+The marriage was set for July, just a year from the time he first saw
+her, and the winter passed quickly, so busied was he in building and
+planning the home. He grew less and less buoyant and more careworn as
+spring wore on, and Ellice could not understand the change. He was
+moody and changeable even in her presence. This troubled her, and she
+often asked:
+
+"What is the matter, Richard? Is your business going wrong?"
+
+"No, oh no. Business is all right. Nothing is the matter." And ended
+by convincing her that something was very much wrong indeed. And she
+grieved in silence, not daring to question him further.
+
+The self-revealing touch came to him in a curious way only a few days
+before their wedding day. He was in camp on a final inspection of his
+mine, and was walking the streets at night, silent, self-absorbed and
+gloomy. He had grown morbid and unwholesome in his thought, and the
+wreck of his happiness seemed already complete. He spent a great deal
+of time in long and lonely walks.
+
+The street swarmed with rough, noisy miners. A band of evangelists,
+with drums and tambourines, occupied the central corner. A low,
+continuous hum of talk could be heard at the base of all other noises.
+
+Being in no mood for companionship Clement stood aside from it all,
+thinking how far above all this life his beautiful bride was.
+
+There had been in the camp for some weeks a certain sensational
+evangelist--a man of some power, but of unhappy disposition
+apparently. At any rate he had been in much trouble with the city
+authorities. He had been called a "hypocrite and fake" in the public
+press, and had been prosecuted for disturbance of the peace. But he
+seemed to thrive on such treatment.
+
+Clement had paid very little attention to the man and his troubles,
+but as he looked down the street at the crowd around the speakers on
+the corner it occurred to him to wonder if they were the fighting
+evangelists.
+
+He was about to move that way when he observed near him in the dark
+middle of the street a man and a woman.
+
+"This will do as well as anywhere," the man said, putting down a small
+box. He wore a broad cowboy hat, and a long coat which hung unbuttoned
+down his powerful figure. The woman was tall and slender, and neatly
+dressed in gray. Clement understood that these were the persecuted
+ones.
+
+The man mounted the box, and in a powerful but not very musical voice
+began to sing a hymn full of cowboy slang. His singing had a quality
+not usual in street singers, and a crowd quickly gathered about him.
+His song was long and not without a rude poetry. He began his address
+at last by issuing a defiance to his enemies. This would mean little
+in an Eastern village, perhaps, but in a mining camp, even a
+degenerate mining camp, it might mean a great deal--life or death, in
+fact.
+
+"Now, gentlemen, I want to say something as a preface in order to know
+just where we stand. Some citizens of the town have vilified me in
+private and in the public press--over an assumed name, however. It
+wouldn't be healthy for any man to do it openly. The man is a
+liar--but I don't care about myself. It is a little difference of
+opinion among men, but some miscreant has reflected upon the good name
+of my wife. Now let me say that the man that says my wife is not a
+lady and a woman of the highest character, insults the mother of my
+children and will answer to me for every word he utters."
+
+A little thrill of interest and awe ran through the crowd. The man's
+voice meant battle, and battle to the hilt of the bowie. It was so
+easy to prove a mark for desperate men, but there was no fear in the
+attitude of the speaker. He had come up through a wild life, and knew
+his audience, his accuser and himself.
+
+His voice took a sudden change--it grew tender and reverent. "I am
+here to preach the gospel of Christ and Him crucified. I may not do it
+in the best way always, but I do it as well as I know how." Here his
+tone grew severely earnest and savage again, as he added: "But I shall
+defend the honor of my wife with my life."
+
+His voice and pose were magnificent--lion-like.
+
+His manner changed again with dramatic suddenness. He took the whole
+street into his confidence.
+
+"I love my wife, gentlemen. She has borne three children to me. She is
+a good woman. A mighty sight smarter and better than I am, but she
+can't defend herself against sneaks and reptilious liars. I can.
+That's part of my business. I tell you, boys," he added in a low voice
+very sincere and winning, "they ain't no man good enough to marry a
+good woman; it's just her good, pure, kind heart gives him any show at
+all."
+
+A sudden lump rose in Clement's throat. The man's deep humility and
+loyalty and apparent sincerity had gone straight to his own heart and
+touched him in a very sensitive place. He turned away and sought the
+deeper shadow with his head bowed in black despair.
+
+He thought of the eyes of his bride with a shudder almost of fear.
+Could he ever face her again?
+
+"Oh, God! How pure and dainty and unspotted she is, and I--I am
+unclean."
+
+He saw as clearly as if a light had been turned in upon his secret
+thought, that the ownership of "The Witch" was in question. He had not
+been candid with her--he had been dishonest. He had not dared to let
+her know how he had secured control of that stock.
+
+All the way back to the Springs he wrestled with himself about it. He
+ended by reasserting the justice of his position, and resolved to tell
+her at once the whole story and let her judge. He had in his pocket
+the deed to the house and lot, which he determined now to give her at
+once, and to make explanations at the same time.
+
+This he did. He called to see her the following afternoon and found
+her surrounded with women and gowns and flowers. The women fled when
+he approached, but the gowns and flowers remained, and there was talk
+upon them till at last, in sheer desperation, Clement said:
+
+"Ellice, here is something that I want to give you now. It is my
+wedding gift."
+
+He placed in her hand the deed. She looked at it.
+
+"Oh, there's so much fine print. I can't read it now. What is it?"
+
+"It is the deed to the new home."
+
+Her eyes misted with quick emotion.
+
+"How good you are to me, Richard."
+
+"No, it's precaution," he replied as lightly as he could. "We will
+have a home always if you don't lose it in some wild speculation."
+
+She put her arms about his neck, an infrequent caress with her.
+
+"How rich we are. God is good to us. And is it not good to think that
+our wealth does not come from anybody's misery? It comes out of the
+earth like a spring--like the spring that made me well."
+
+As he looked down into her face it seemed lit from within by some
+Heavenly light, and her voice made his head grow dizzy. He could not
+tell her his story then.
+
+He sat down and listened to her talk. She wanted to know what troubled
+him, and he was forced to lie.
+
+"Oh, nothing. I'm a little worried about a--new piece of machinery."
+This gave him a thought. "I must be away this evening. I can't take
+dinner with you."
+
+She was not one of those who worry with expostulations or
+complainings. She had a mind of her own, and she granted the same
+decision to others.
+
+"Very well," she said, and she flashed a sudden roguish look at him.
+"Don't forget to breakfast with me."
+
+He had the grace to return her smile as he said:
+
+"Oh, I'll not forget. I've charged my mind with it."
+
+His going was like a flight. His inner cry was this:
+
+"My God! I am absolutely unworthy of her. I am big, coarse and
+dishonest--unfit to touch her hand."
+
+His gloomy face and bent head was a subject of joke for the
+acquaintances he met on the street.
+
+"Saddle Susanna," he called sharply to his Mexican hostler. He had
+made up his mind to radical measures.
+
+As he sat in his room with his face buried in his hands shutting out
+the light of the splendid sunset, he saw her as she sat among her soft
+silks and dainty flowers. Her lovely eyes and the exquisite texture of
+her skin grew more and more wonderful to him. The touch of his lips to
+hers came to seem an act of pollution, almost of envenoming, as he
+brooded on his unworthiness.
+
+He wrote a note to her on the impulse of the moment. The missive read:
+
+     "I am not fit to see you, to touch you. I am going away
+     across the divide to make restitution for a great wrong I
+     have done. If I do not I can never face you again. When I
+     see you again I will be an honest man, or I--if you think me
+     worthy of forgiveness I will see you and ask it to-morrow.
+                                                  RICHARD."
+
+He added as a postscript:
+
+     "I am well. I am not crazy, but I am not an honest man. I
+     can't kiss you again till I am."
+
+Upon reading this note he saw it would frighten her, and keep her in
+agony of suspense, therefore he tore it up, and rushing out of the
+house leaped into the saddle.
+
+The spirited little broncho was fresh and mettlesome, and went off in
+a series of sheeplike bounds which her rider seemed not to notice.
+
+He drew rein at the telegraph office, and there sent three telegrams.
+They were all alike:
+
+     "Meet me at the office at midnight. Important."
+
+As he turned Susanna's head up the trail the mountains stood deep
+purple silhouettes against the cloudlessness of the sky. The wind blew
+from the heights cool and fragrant, and the little horse set nostril
+to it as if she anticipated and welcomed the hard ride.
+
+The way lay over forbidding mountain passes ten thousand feet above
+the sea, and her rider was a heavy man. But Susanna was of broncho
+strain with a blooded sire, which makes the hardiest and swiftest
+mountain horse in the world.
+
+Clement's mind cleared as he began the ascent--cleared but did not
+rest. Over and over the problem came, each time clearer and more
+difficult. He must that night give away a hundred and thirty-five
+thousand dollars--terrible ordeal! Ninety thousand dollars to go to an
+old Irishman and his wife--both ignorant, careless.
+
+What would they do with it? It might drive them crazy. As they now
+lived they were comfortable. He had made Dan sub-superintendent of the
+mine, and he had rebuilt the eating-house for Biddy. Could they take
+care of the big fortune he was about to give them?
+
+Ought he not to give them a few thousands--such sum as they could
+comprehend and take care of? Would it not be better for them?
+
+Then there was forty-five thousand dollars to be given to a cheap
+little man--that was hardest of all, for he had come to hate the sight
+of the sleek black head of Arthur Eldred. Yes, but he had saved the
+day. He had put in six hundred dollars when every dollar was a ducat.
+True, but the reward was too great. A hundred thousand dollars for six
+hundred.
+
+Oh, this was familiar ground! He had gone over it in a sort of
+sub-conscious way a hundred times, each time apparently the final one.
+It had been quite settled when this slender little woman first lifted
+her face to him, and now nothing was settled.
+
+It was very still and cold. There was no stream to sing up through the
+pines, and no wind in the pines to answer should the stream call.
+Nothing seemed to be stirring save the pensive man and his faithful
+pony.
+
+Reaching the upper levels he spurred on at a gallop, finding some
+relief in the pounding action of the saddle and in the rush of air
+past his ears. The moon was late, but when it came it seemed to help
+him, lightening his mood as it lightened the trail. The big ledges and
+lowering, lesser peaks lifted into the dark sky weirdly translucent,
+and their upper edges seemed smooth and graceful as the rims of
+bubbles. Solid rock seemed melted and transfused with light and air.
+It was all miraculously beautiful, and the sore-hearted man lifted his
+eyes to the heights seeing the face of a girl in every moonlit rock
+and in every wayside pool.
+
+As he entered the office he found them all waiting for him--Dan and
+Biddy in their best dress, and Eldred with a supercilious half-grin,
+half-scowl on his face.
+
+Clement nodded at him, but said "Hello" to Dan and "Good-evening" to
+Biddy. Conly, his trusted, discreet cashier, was at his desk, and the
+office was dimly lit with a single electric bulb.
+
+Dan and Biddy greeted him cautiously, for Eldred had filled their
+simple souls with suspicion. "He wants to compromise. He's afraid of
+our suit against him."
+
+As a matter of fact Dan would never put a dollar into the plan for a
+suit, and it had never gone beyond Eldred's talk--and yet he had made
+them suspicious. Dan was forced to confess that Clement was becoming
+an "a-ristocrat." And Biddy acknowledged that he "sildom dairkened her
+dure these days." They had always felt his superiority and refinement,
+and they rose as he entered.
+
+He wasted no time in preliminaries. "Sit down," he said imperiously,
+and his face, when he turned to the light, was knotted with trouble.
+He sat for a moment with bent head while he strengthened his heart to
+a bitter and humiliating task. He began abruptly:
+
+"Dan, you remember the time I brought the amalgam home in a vial and
+it had turned green?"
+
+"I do. Yis."
+
+"You remember that you gave it up right then."
+
+"I did. I said it's 'witch's gould.'"
+
+"Sure such it looked like that day," said Biddy.
+
+"All the same, the thing which scared you put a happy thought into my
+head, and I felt then I could solve it." He lifted his head and looked
+around defiantly. "In short, when I bought your stock in at ten cents
+on the dollar I knew it was worth par, for I had solved the process."
+
+There was a silence very awesome following the defiant ring of the
+voice.
+
+Eldred was the first to comprehend what it meant. His eyes glittered
+like those of an awakened rat.
+
+"Do you mean that? If that's true you robbed us, you thief, robbed us
+cold and clean." He sprang up. "I knew you'd do something----"
+
+"Sit down," interrupted Clement harshly. "I'm not going to have any
+words with you. If I had seen fit not to tell you of this how much
+would you have known of it? Sit down and keep your tongue between your
+teeth." He turned to Dan and his voice was softer. "Dan, when I was
+hungry you took me in and fed me. For that I've given you a good
+position. Is that debt paid?"
+
+"Sure, Clement, me boy, it was only a sup of p'taties an' bacon,
+annyway."
+
+"Biddy, I turned over two thousand dollars to you, and rebuilt your
+eating-house. You thought that paid the debt I owed you?"
+
+Biddy was slower to answer. "For all the grub an' the loikes o' that,
+indade yis, Mr. Clement--but sure we wor pardners----"
+
+Clement interrupted. "I know. I'm coming to that. Now answer me. If it
+hadn't been for me wouldn't you have thrown up the sponge long before
+you did?"
+
+The silence of the little group answered him.
+
+"Would any of you ever have worked out the mystery of that ore?
+Weren't you all anxious to sell for anything you could get?"
+
+They were all silent as before.
+
+"I made the mine worth money. I discovered the secret, it was my
+invention. I paid you four times what you had put into it. The mine
+was worthless until I invented a process for saving the gold. I
+claimed it as an invention like any man claims a patent right. I
+believed I had a right to it--to all of it, and so I bought in your
+stock after I had solved the problem of the reduction. I say I
+believed I was right--to-night I believe I was wrong--it don't matter
+how I came to the conclusion, but I've changed my mind. I have come
+to-night to make restitution. I am ready to pay you ninety cents more
+on every dollar of stock you sold me at that time."
+
+Biddy gasped: "Howly Saints!"
+
+Dan leaped up with a wild hurrah. "Listen to that now!" he cried, with
+other incoherences. He shook Clement's hand and kissed Biddy. He
+praised Clement.
+
+"Ye're the whitest man that iver stepped green turf."
+
+Clement sat coldly impassive and unsmiling.
+
+"Then you're satisfied?"
+
+"Satisfied!" shouted Dan. "Satisfied is it, man? Indade I am."
+
+"And you, Biddy?"
+
+Biddy was weeping and muttering wild Irish prayers. "Dan, dear, do ye
+understand, it's forty-five thousand dollars apiece to the two of us.
+Oh, the blessed old Ireland! I'll go back sure. Oh, it's too good to
+be true--we must be dramin'."
+
+Clement looked at the distracted woman with a flush of
+self-righteousness. He had been right in his fears. It seemed like to
+ruin the simple souls. He turned to Eldred, who sat in silence.
+
+"What have you to say?"
+
+Eldred sneered. "I say you can't fool me. These shares are worth
+seventeen dollars and eighty cents each. I want their market value,
+not their par value. I want one-quarter the present value of 'The
+Witch.'"
+
+Clement's brow darkened and his eyes burned with a fierce steady
+light.
+
+"Is that all you want? If I served you right I'd kick you out of the
+door and let you do your worst. I know if you sue that you can't
+recover one dollar from me. But I have my reasons for putting up with
+your insolence. I will pay you forty-five thousand dollars and not one
+cent more. The market value of 'The Witch' to-day I have made by my
+management. I have gone on improving the mine day by day. As it stands
+it is a new property. You were a quarter owner in 'The Biddy.' We
+capitalized 'The Biddy' at your own suggestion at two hundred thousand
+dollars, because we wanted it big enough to cover all values. When I
+render you your share of that I am doing you justice. John, make out
+three checks for forty-five thousand dollars each."
+
+Dan and Biddy turned upon Eldred and talked him into silence, but he
+was unconvinced.
+
+Clement refused to touch the checks, and the clerk said: "Here is
+yours, Biddy."
+
+Biddy went up and took the slip in her hands. "Is that little slip o'
+white paper really worth so much?"
+
+"Call at the bank and get your money when you want it," said the
+imperturbable cashier.
+
+Dan studied his check, his face foolish with joy.
+
+Eldred took his, saying, "This puts into my hands the means to fight."
+
+Clement merely nodded. "You know my address." Eldred went out without
+further word.
+
+When the door closed on him Clement's face lost its sternness, and he
+became sad and tender.
+
+His struggle was not yet done. His mind was clear about the man who
+came in at the eleventh hour, but it was not clear with regard to
+these true-hearted old friends who had been with him from the first.
+He recalled the time when Dan's big arm had helped him to a chair, and
+Biddy had put the steaming soup before him--food worth all the gold in
+the world at that moment. He recalled her broad, kindly face, hot and
+shining from the stove; he remembered their struggles, their
+sacrifices.
+
+"Wait a moment, Biddy," he said, as they called out "Good-night," and
+started to leave.
+
+"Sit down a moment, and you, too, Dan. I want to talk over old times a
+while."
+
+They sat down in stupefaction.
+
+"Biddy, do you remember the money you squandered on the lottery
+ticket?"
+
+A slow smile broadened her face. "I do, Mister Clement--and I remember
+I won the prize sure!"
+
+"You did, and saved all our lives. Dan, do you remember the day we
+lost our last five-dollar gold piece in the grass?"
+
+Dan slapped his knee. "Do I? I wore me hands raw as beef combin' the
+grass that day."
+
+"Ah, those were great days. We had days when forty-five cents would
+have made us joyous, and here you are with ninety thousand dollars,
+and wishin' for more."
+
+Dan laughed again. "Sure, that's no lie."
+
+"It is, Dan Kelly," said Biddy. "I have enough--too much. My heart
+misgives me now. I'm afraid of it, sure. I'm scared to carry it away
+wid me."
+
+"You're safe, Biddy; nobody will steal that check." A sudden impulse
+seized him. "Dan, you believed in me in those days--give me that
+check." Dan slowly handed to him the check. Clement took it and
+turned. "Biddy, you fed me when I was starving, and you pawned
+everything you had to 'grub-stake' me--give me your check." She handed
+it to him without hesitation. He tore them into small pieces.
+
+"Dan, you are mining boss, and I make you both quarter owners in 'The
+Witch' with all I have, and share and share alike, as we did when we
+hadn't a dime. Now hurrah for 'The Witch.'"
+
+Nobody shouted but the cashier. Dan sat in a stupor, and Biddy was
+weeping, with one arm flung around Dan's neck. Dan was turning his hat
+around on his fingers and staring at Clement's face for some solution
+to the situation. It was beyond his imagination.
+
+Clement did not speak again for some moments. When he did his voice
+was husky and tremulous with emotion. "You notice I say quarter
+interest--that's because there is a new member in the firm now. She
+comes in to-morrow. I want you to see how she looks." He extended a
+picture of Ellice to Biddy. She made a marvelous dramatic shift of
+features, and a smile of admiration broke through the red of her broad
+countenance.
+
+"Oh, the swate, blessed angel. Sure, she's beautiful as one of the
+saints in the church. Luk at her, Dan."
+
+"I'm lukin'. She's none too good for him."
+
+"Don't say that, Dan!" Clement protested in an earnest tone. "All you
+have to-night you owe to her. All the best thoughts in me to-day I owe
+to her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+There remained to him now all the joy of riding back to tell her of
+his purification of soul. His heart was so joyous it kept time to
+every happy song in the world.
+
+The gloom and doubt of himself had passed away, but the wonder and
+mystery of woman's love for man remained. He felt himself to be an
+honest man, but a man big, crude and coarse compared to her beauty and
+delicacy. He marveled at her bravery and her magnanimity. Leaving
+Susanna he leaped upon a fresh horse and set off, riding fast toward
+the divide. The wind had risen and was blowing from the dim domes of
+the highest mountains--a cold wind, and he would have said a sad wind
+had his heart not been so light. As it was, he lifted his bared
+forehead to it exultantly.
+
+He put behind him, so far as in his power lay, all thought of the
+great wealth he had given away. He was eager to pour out the whole
+story to her, and hear her say, "Well done, Richard."
+
+Over and over again his thought ran: "Now I am an honest man. I am not
+worthy of her, but at least my heart is clean."
+
+Henceforth she was to be his altar of sacrifice. All he did would be
+for her approval. All there was of his money, his inventive skill, his
+command of men, should be hers. She should regulate every hour of his
+coming and going, and share all the plans and purposes of his life.
+
+"Oh, I must live right, and deal justly," he thought. "I must be a
+better man from this time forth."
+
+In the east the pale lances of the coming sun pierced the breasts of
+the soaring gray clouds, and, behold, they grew to be the most
+splendid orange and red and purple. The stars began to pale, and as he
+came to the eastern slope where the plain stretched to dim splendor,
+like a motionless sea of russet and purple, the sun was rising.
+
+The plain seemed lonely and desolate of life, so far below was it. All
+action was lost in the mist of immensity--men's stature that of the
+most minute insects. And down there in the pathway of the morning was
+the little woman of all the world waiting for him!
+
+As he rode down the slope to the river level into the town the sun was
+swinging, big and red, high above the horizon. His long ride had made
+him look wan and pale, but he ordered coffee and a biscuit, and was
+glad to find it helped him to look less wan and sorrowful. He dressed
+with great care, then sat down to wait. At 7:30 o'clock he sent a note
+to her:
+
+     "I have not forgotten. When do you breakfast?"
+
+She replied:
+
+     "Good-morning, dearest. Breakfast is ready; come as soon as
+     you can."
+
+He entered the room with the heart of a boy, the presence of an
+athlete. He was at his prime of robust manhood, and his physical pride
+was unconscious.
+
+She was proud of him, and met him more than half way in his greeting.
+Her face was still slender and delicate of color, but in her eyes was
+a serene brightness, and her lips were tremulous with happiness.
+
+She led him to the little table. "Now you mustn't call this
+breakfast," she explained. "This is a private cup of coffee to sustain
+us through the ordeal. We all breakfast immediately after the
+ceremony."
+
+"I've had one breakfast this morning."
+
+She looked dismayed.
+
+"At least a roll and a cup of coffee," he hastened to explain.
+"However, I think I could eat all there is here and not be
+inconvenienced."
+
+They sat down and looked at each other in silence. She spoke first.
+
+"Just think, this is the last time you will ever sit down with Miss
+Ross."
+
+"You seem to be sad about it."
+
+"I am--and yet I am very happy. I don't suppose you men can
+understand, but a woman wants to marry the man she loves--and yet she
+is sad at leaving girlhood behind. Now let me see, you take two lumps,
+don't you? I must not forget that. It makes the waiter stare when a
+wife can't remember how many lumps of sugar her husband takes."
+
+He felt his courage oozing away, and so began abruptly:
+
+"Ellice, I have a story to tell and a confession to make to you."
+
+She looked a little startled. "That sounds ominous, Richard--like the
+villain in the play, only he makes his confession after marriage."
+
+He was very sober indeed now. "That's the reason I make mine now. I
+want you to know just what I am before you marry me."
+
+She leaned her chin on her clasped hands and looked at him. "Tell me
+all about it."
+
+He did. He began at the beginning, and while it would not be true to
+say he did not spare himself, he told the story as it actually
+happened. He concealed no essential.
+
+"I rode there and back last night simply because I couldn't kiss you
+again until I had made myself an honest man."
+
+She reached out and clutched the hand which lay on the table near
+her--a sudden convulsive embrace.
+
+"Last night?"
+
+"Yes, I've been to the camp since I left you last night. I couldn't
+stand with you--there--before all our friends, till I could say I had
+no other man's money in my pockets."
+
+She took his hand in both of her own and bent her head and touched her
+cheek to his fingers. She was very deeply moved.
+
+And he--though his voice choked--faltered through:
+
+"I gave it all back, dear--I mean I gave over to Biddy and Dan their
+full share--they are equal owners with you and me in 'The Witch.' I
+tried to withhold some of it; it was hard to give it all back; but I
+did it because I believed you would approve of it. And now, if you
+will let me, I can call you my wife with a clear conscience."
+
+For answer she rose and came to his side, and put her arms about his
+neck and laid a kiss on his upturned face. Words were of no avail. In
+his heart the man was still afraid of one so good and loving.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Spirit of Sweetwater, by Hamlin Garland
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