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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jeff Briggs's Love Story, by Bret Harte
+
+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: Jeff Briggs's Love Story
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2695]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+It was raining and blowing at Eldridge's Crossing. From the stately
+pine-trees on the hill-tops, which were dignifiedly protesting through
+their rigid spines upward, to the hysterical willows in the hollow, that
+had whipped themselves into a maudlin fury, there was a general tumult.
+When the wind lulled, the rain kept up the distraction, firing long
+volleys across the road, letting loose miniature cataracts from the
+hill-sides to brawl in the ditches, and beating down the heavy heads
+of wild oats on the levels; when the rain ceased for a moment the wind
+charged over the already defeated field, ruffled the gullies, scattered
+the spray from the roadside pines, and added insult to injury. But both
+wind and rain concentrated their energies in a malevolent attempt to
+utterly disperse and scatter the "Half-way House," which seemed to
+have wholly lost its way, and strayed into the open, where, dazed and
+bewildered, unprepared and unprotected, it was exposed to the taunting
+fury of the blast. A loose, shambling, disjointed, hastily built
+structure--representing the worst features of Pioneer renaissance--it
+rattled its loose window-sashes like chattering teeth, banged its
+ill-hung shutters, and admitted so much of the invading storm, that it
+might have blown up or blown down with equal facility.
+
+Jefferson Briggs, proprietor and landlord of the "Half-way House," had
+just gone through the formality of closing his house for the night,
+hanging dangerously out of the window in the vain attempt to subdue a
+rebellious shutter that had evidently entered into conspiracy with the
+invaders, and, shutting a door as against a sheriff's posse, was going
+to bed--i. e., to read himself asleep, as was his custom. As he entered
+his little bedroom in the attic with a highly exciting novel in his
+pocket and a kerosene lamp in his hand, the wind, lying in wait for
+him, instantly extinguished his lamp and slammed the door behind him.
+Jefferson Briggs relighted the lamp, as if confidentially, in a corner,
+and, shielding it in the bosom of his red flannel shirt, which gave him
+the appearance of an illuminated shrine, hung a heavy bear-skin across
+the window, and then carefully deposited his lamp upon a chair at his
+bedside. This done, he kicked off his boots, flung them into a corner,
+and, rolling himself in a blanket, lay down upon the bed. A habit of
+early rising, bringing with it, presumably, the proverbial accompaniment
+of health, wisdom, and pecuniary emoluments, had also brought with it
+certain ideas of the effeminacy of separate toilettes and the virtue of
+readiness.
+
+In a few moments he was deep in a chapter.
+
+A vague pecking at his door--as of an unseasonable woodpecker, finally
+asserted itself to his consciousness. "Come in," he said, with his eye
+still on the page.
+
+The door opened to a gaunt figure, partly composed of bed-quilt and
+partly of plaid shawl. A predominance of the latter and a long wisp of
+iron-gray hair determined her sex. She leaned against the post with an
+air of fatigue, half moral and half physical.
+
+"How ye kin lie thar, abed, Jeff, and read and smoke on sich a night!
+The sperrit o' the Lord abroad over the yearth--and up stage not gone by
+yet. Well, well! it's well thar ez SOME EZ CAN'T SLEEP."
+
+"The up coach, like as not, is stopped by high water on the North Fork,
+ten miles away, aunty," responded Jeff, keeping to the facts. Possibly
+not recognizing the hand of the beneficent Creator in the rebellious
+window shutter, he avoided theology.
+
+"Well," responded the figure, with an air of delivering an unheeded and
+thankless warning, "it is not for ME to say. P'raps it's all His wisdom
+that some will keep to their own mind. It's well ez some hezn't narves,
+and kin luxuriate in terbacker in the night watches. But He says, 'I'll
+come like a thief in the night!'--like a thief in the night, Jeff."
+
+Totally unable to reconcile this illustration with the delayed "Pioneer"
+coach and Yuba Bill, its driver, Jeff lay silent. In his own way,
+perhaps, he was uneasy--not to say shocked--at his aunt's habitual
+freedom of scriptural quotation, as that good lady herself was with
+an occasional oath from his lips; a fact, by the way, not generally
+understood by purveyors of Scripture, licensed and unlicensed.
+
+"I'd take a pull at them bitters, aunty," said Jeff feebly, with his
+wandering eye still recurring to his page. "They'll do ye a power of
+good in the way o' calmin' yer narves."
+
+"Ef I was like some folks I wouldn't want bitters--though made outer the
+simplest yarbs of the yearth, with jest enough sperrit to bring out the
+vartoos--ez Deacon Stoer's Balm 'er Gilead is--what yer meaning? Ef
+I was like some folks I could lie thar and smoke in the lap o'
+idleness--with fourteen beds in the house empty, and nary lodger for one
+of 'em. Ef I was that indifferent to havin' invested my fortin in the
+good will o' this house, and not ez much ez a single transient lookin'
+in, I could lie down and take comfort in profane literatoor. But it
+ain't in me to do it. And it wasn't your father's way, Jeff, neither!"
+
+As the elder Briggs's way had been to seek surcease from such trouble at
+the gambling table, and eventually, in suicide, Jeff could not deny
+it. But he did not say that a full realization of his unhappy venture
+overcame him as he closed the blinds of the hotel that night; and that
+the half desperate idea of abandoning it then and there to the warring
+elements that had resented his trespass on Nature seemed to him an
+act of simple reason and justice. He did not say this, for easy-going
+natures are not apt to explain the processes by which their content or
+resignation is reached, and are therefore supposed to have none.
+Keeping to the facts, he simply suggested the weather was unfavorable to
+travelers, and again found his place on the page before him. Fixing it
+with his thumb, he looked up resignedly. The figure wearily detached
+itself from the door-post, and Jeff's eyes fell on his book. "You won't
+stop, aunty?" he asked mechanically, as if reading aloud from the page;
+but she was gone.
+
+A little ashamed, although much relieved, Jeff fell back again to
+literature, interrupted only by the charging of the wind and the heavy
+volleys of rain. Presently he found himself wondering if a certain
+banging were really a shutter, and then, having settled in his mind that
+it WAS, he was startled by a shout. Another, and in the road before the
+house!
+
+Jeff put down the book, and marked the place by turning down the leaf,
+being one of that large class of readers whose mental faculties are
+butter-fingered, and easily slip their hold. Then he resumed his boots
+and was duly caparisoned. He extinguished the kerosene lamp, and braved
+the outer air, and strong currents of the hall and stairway in the
+darkness. Lighting two candles in the bar-room, he proceeded to unlock
+the hall door. At the same instant a furious blast shook the house,
+the door yielded slightly and impelled a thin, meek-looking stranger
+violently against Jeff, who still struggled with it.
+
+"An accident has occurred," began the stranger, "and"--but here the wind
+charged again, blew open the door, pinned Jeff behind it back against
+the wall, overturned the dripping stranger, dashed up the staircase, and
+slammed every door in the house, ending triumphantly with No. 14, and a
+crash of glass in the window.
+
+"'Come, rouse up!" said Jeff, still struggling with the door, "rouse up
+and lend a hand yer!"
+
+Thus abjured, the stranger crept along the wall towards Jeff and began
+again, "We have met with an accident." But here another and mightier
+gust left him speechless, covered him with spray of a wildly
+disorganized water-spout that, dangling from the roof, seemed to be
+playing on the front door, drove him into black obscurity and again
+sandwiched his host between the door and the wall. Then there was a
+lull, and in the midst of it Yuba Bill, driver of the "Pioneer" coach,
+quietly and coolly, impervious in waterproof, walked into the hall,
+entered the bar-room, took a candle, and, going behind the bar, selected
+a bottle, critically examined it, and, returning, poured out a quantity
+of whiskey in a glass and gulped it in a single draught.
+
+All this while Jeff was closing the door, and the meek-looking man was
+coming into the light again.
+
+Yuba Bill squared his elbows behind him and rested them on the bar,
+crossed his legs easily and awaited them. In reply to Jeff's inquiring
+but respectful look, he said shortly--
+
+"Oh, you're thar, are ye?"
+
+"Yes, Bill."
+
+"Well, this yer new-fangled road o' yours is ten feet deep in the hollow
+with back water from the North Fork! I've taken that yar coach inter
+fower feet of it, and then I reckoned I couldn't hev any more. 'I'll
+stand on this yer hand,' sez I; I brought the horses up yer and landed
+'em in your barn to eat their blessed heads off till the water goes
+down. That's wot's the matter, old man, and jist about wot I kalkilated
+on from those durned old improvements o' yours."
+
+Coloring a little at this new count in the general indictment against
+the uselessness of the "Half-way House," Jeff asked if there were "any
+passengers?"
+
+Yuba Bill indicated the meek stranger with a jerk of his thumb. "And his
+wife and darter in the coach. They're all right and tight, ez if they
+was in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But I reckon he allows to fetch 'em up
+yer," added Bill, as if he strongly doubted the wisdom of the transfer.
+
+The meek man, much meeker for the presence of Bill, here suggested that
+such indeed was his wish, and further prayed that Jeff would accompany
+him to the coach to assist in bringing them up. "It's rather wet and
+dark," said the man apologetically; "my daughter is not strong. Have you
+such a thing as a waterproof?"
+
+Jeff had not; but would a bear-skin do?
+
+It would.
+
+Jeff ran, tore down his extempore window curtain, and returned with it.
+Yuba Bill, who had quietly and disapprovingly surveyed the proceeding,
+here disengaged himself from the bar with evident reluctance.
+
+"You'll want another man," he said to Jeff, "onless ye can carry double.
+Ez HE," indicating the stranger, "ez no sort o' use, he'd better stay
+here and 'tend bar,' while you and me fetch the wimmen off. 'Specially
+ez I reckon we've got to do some tall wadin' by this time to reach 'em."
+
+The meek man sat down helplessly in a chair indicated by Bill, who at
+once strode after Jeff. In another moment they were both fighting
+their way, step by step, against the storm, in that peculiar, drunken,
+spasmodic way so amusing to the spectator and so exasperating to
+the performer. It was no time for conversation, even interjectional
+profanity was dangerously exhaustive.
+
+The coach was scarcely a thousand yards away, but its bright lights were
+reflected in a sheet of dark silent water that stretched between it and
+the two men. Wading and splashing, they soon reached it, and a gully
+where the surplus water was pouring into the valley below. "Fower feet
+o' water round her, but can't get any higher. So ye see she's all right
+for a month o' sich weather." Inwardly admiring the perspicacity of his
+companion, Jeff was about to open the coach door when Bill interrupted.
+
+"I'll pack the old woman, if you'll look arter the darter and enny
+little traps."
+
+A female face, anxious and elderly, here appeared at the window.
+
+"Thet's my little game," said Bill, sotto voce.
+
+"Is there any danger? where is my husband?" asked the woman impatiently.
+
+"Ez to the danger, ma'am,--thar ain't any. Yer ez safe HERE ez ye'd be
+in a Sacramento steamer; ez to your husband, he allowed I was to come
+yer and fetch yer up to the hotel. That's his look-out!" With this
+cheering speech, Bill proceeded to make two or three ineffectual scoops
+into the dark interior, manifestly with the idea of scooping out the
+lady in question. In another instant he had caught her, lifted her
+gently but firmly in his arms, and was turning away.
+
+"But my child!--my daughter! she's asleep!"--expostulated the woman; but
+Bill was already swiftly splashing through the darkness. Jeff, left to
+himself, hastily examined the coach: on the back seat a slight small
+figure, enveloped in a shawl, lay motionless. Jeff threw the bear-skin
+over it gently, lifted it on one arm, and gathering a few travelling
+bags and baskets with the other, prepared to follow his quickly
+disappearing leader. A few feet from the coach the water appeared to
+deepen, and the bear-skin to draggle. Jeff drew the figure up higher, in
+vain.
+
+"Sis," he said softly.
+
+No reply.
+
+"Sis," shaking her gently.
+
+There was a slight movement within the wrappings.
+
+"Couldn't ye climb up on my shoulder, honey? that's a good child!"
+
+There were one or two spasmodic jerks of the bear-skin, and, aided by
+Jeff, the bundle was presently seated on his shoulder.
+
+"Are you all right now, Sis?"
+
+Something like a laugh came from the bear-skin. Then a childish voice
+said, "Thank you, I think I am!"
+
+"Ain't you afraid you'll fall off?"
+
+"A little."
+
+Jeff hesitated. It was beginning to blow again.
+
+"You couldn't reach down and put your arm round my neck, could ye,
+honey?"
+
+"I am afraid not!"--although there WAS a slight attempt to do so.
+
+"No?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Well, then, take a good holt, a firm strong holt, o' my hair! Don't be
+afraid!"
+
+A small hand timidly began to rummage in Jeff's thick curls.
+
+"Take a firm holt; thar, just back o' my neck! That's right."
+
+The little hand closed over half a dozen curls. The little figure shook,
+and giggled.
+
+"Now don't you see, honey, if I'm keerless with you, and don't keep
+you plump level up thar, you jist give me a pull and fetch me up all
+standing!"
+
+"I see!"
+
+"Of course you do! That's because you're a little lady!"
+
+Jeff strode on. It was pleasant to feel the soft warm fingers in his
+hair, pleasant to hear the faint childish voice, pleasant to draw the
+feet of the enwrapped figure against his broad breast. Altogether he
+was sorry when they reached the dry land and the lee of the "Half-way
+House," where a slight movement of the figure expressed a wish to
+dismount.
+
+"Not yet, missy," said Jeff; "not yet! You'll get blown away, sure! And
+then what'll they say? No, honey! I'll take you right in to your papa,
+just as ye are!"
+
+A few steps more and Jeff strode into the hall, made his way to
+the sitting-room, walked to the sofa, and deposited his burden. The
+bear-skin fell back, the shawl fell back, and Jeff--fell back too!
+For before him lay a small, slight, but beautiful and perfectly formed
+woman.
+
+He had time to see that the meek man, no longer meek, but apparently a
+stern uncompromising parent, was standing at the head of the sofa; that
+the elderly and nervous female was hovering at the foot, that his aunt,
+with every symptom of religious and moral disapproval of his conduct,
+sat rigidly in one of the rigid chairs--he had time to see all this
+before the quick, hot blood, flying to his face, sent the water into his
+eyes, and he could see nothing!
+
+The cause of all this smiled--a dazzling smile though a faint one--that
+momentarily lit up the austere gloom of the room and its occupants. "You
+must thank this gentleman, papa," said she, languidly turning to her
+father, "for his kindness and his trouble. He has carried me here as
+gently and as carefully as if I were a child." Seeing symptoms of a
+return of Jeff's distress in his coloring face, she added softly, as
+if to herself, "It's a great thing to be strong--a greater thing to be
+strong AND gentle."
+
+The voice thrilled through Jeff. But into this dangerous human voice
+twanged the accents of special spiritual revelation, and called him
+to himself again, "Be ye wise as sarpints, but harmless as duvs," said
+Jeff's aunt, generally, "and let 'em be thankful ez doesn't aboos the
+stren'th the Lord gives 'em, but be allers ready to answer for it at the
+bar o' their Maker." Possibly some suggestion in her figure of speech
+reminded her of Jeff's forgotten duties, so she added in the same breath
+and tone, "especially when transient customers is waiting for their
+licker, and Yuba Bill hammerin' on the counter with his glass; and yer
+ye stand, Jeff, never even takin' up that wet bar-skin--enuff to give
+that young woman her death."
+
+Stammering out an incoherent apology, addressed vaguely to the occupants
+of the room, but looking toward the languid goddess on the sofa, Jeff
+seized the bear-skin and backed out the door. Then he flew to his room
+with it, and then returned to the bar-room; but the impatient William of
+Yuba had characteristically helped himself and gone off to the stable.
+Then Jeff stole into the hall and halted before the closed door of the
+sitting-room. A bold idea of going in again, as became a landlord of the
+"Half-way House," with an inquiry if they wished anything further, had
+seized him, but the remembrance that he had always meekly allowed that
+duty to devolve upon his aunt, and that she would probably resent it
+with scriptural authority and bring him to shame again, stayed his
+timid knuckles at the door. In this hesitation he stumbled upon his aunt
+coming down the stairs with an armful of blankets and pillows, attended
+by their small Indian servant, staggering under a mattress.
+
+"Is everything all right, aunty?"
+
+"Ye kin be thankful to the Lord, Jeff Briggs, that this didn't happen
+last week when I was down on my back with rheumatiz. But ye're never
+grateful."
+
+"The young lady--is SHE comfortable?" said Jeff, accepting his aunt's
+previous remark as confirmatory.
+
+"Ez well ez enny critter marked by the finger of the Lord with gallopin'
+consumption kin be, I reckon. And she, ez oughter be putting off airthly
+vanities, askin' for a lookin'-glass! And you! trapesin' through the
+hall with her on yer shoulder, and dancin' and jouncin' her up and down
+ez if it was a ball-room!" A guilty recollection that he had skipped
+with her through the passage struck him with remorse as his aunt went
+on: "It's a mercy that betwixt you and the wet bar-skin she ain't got
+her deth!"
+
+"Don't ye think, aunty," stammered Jeff, "that--that--my bein' the
+landlord, yer know, it would be the square thing--just out o' respect,
+ye know--for me to drop in thar and ask 'em if thar's anythin' they
+wanted?"
+
+His aunt stopped, and resignedly put down the pillows. "Sarah," she
+said meekly to the handmaiden, "ye kin leave go that mattress. Yer's Mr.
+Jefferson thinks we ain't good enough to make the beds for them two city
+women folks, and he allows he'll do it himself!"
+
+"No, no! aunty!" began the horrified Jeff; but failing to placate his
+injured relative, took safety in flight.
+
+Once safe in his own room his eye fell on the bear-skin. It certainly
+WAS wet. Perhaps he had been careless--perhaps he had imperiled her
+life! His cheeks flushed as he threw it hastily in the corner. Something
+fell from it to the floor. Jeff picked it up and held it to the light.
+It was a small, a very small, lady's slipper. Holding it within the palm
+of his hand as if it had been some delicate flower which the pressure of
+a finger might crush, he strode to the door, but stopped. Should he
+give it to his aunt? Even if she overlooked this evident proof of
+HIS carelessness, what would she think of the young lady's? Ought
+he--seductive thought!--go downstairs again, knock at the door, and give
+it to its fair owner, with the apology he was longing to make? Then he
+remembered that he had but a few moments before been dismissed from the
+room very much as if he were the original proprietor of the skin he had
+taken. Perhaps they were right; perhaps he WAS only a foolish clumsy
+animal! Yet SHE had thanked him--and had said in her sweet childlike
+voice, "It is a great thing to be strong; a greater thing to be strong
+and gentle." He was strong; strong men had said so. He did not know if
+he was gentle too. Had she meant THAT, when she turned her strangely
+soft dark eyes upon him? For some moments he held the slipper
+hesitatingly in his hand, then he opened his trunk, and disposing
+various articles around it as if it were some fragile, perishable
+object, laid it carefully therein.
+
+This done, he drew off his boots, and rolling himself in his blanket,
+lay down upon the bed. He did not open his novel--he did not follow
+up the exciting love episode of his favorite hero--so ungrateful
+is humanity to us poor romancers, in the first stages of their real
+passion. Ah, me! 'tis the jongleurs and troubadours they want then, not
+us! When Master Slender, sick for sweet Anne Page, would "rather than
+forty shillings" he had his "book of songs and sonnets" there, what
+availed it that the Italian Boccaccio had contemporaneously discoursed
+wisely and sweetly of love in prose? I doubt not that Master Jeff would
+have mumbled some verse to himself had he known any: knowing none, he
+lay there and listened to the wind.
+
+Did she hear it; did it keep her awake? He had an uneasy suspicion that
+the shutter that was banging so outrageously was the shutter of her
+room. Filled with this miserable thought, he arose softly, stole down
+the staircase, and listened. The sound was repeated. It was truly
+the refractory shutter of No. 7--the best bedroom adjoining the
+sitting-room. The next room, No. 8, was vacant. Jeff entered it softly,
+as softly opened the window, and leaning far out in the tempest, essayed
+to secure the nocturnal disturber. But in vain. Cord or rope he
+had none, nor could he procure either without alarming his aunt--an
+extremity not to be considered. Jeff was a man of clumsy but forceful
+expedients. He hung far out of the window, and with one powerful hand
+lifted the shutter off its hinges and dragged it softly into No. 8. Then
+as softly he crept upstairs to bed. The wind howled and tore round the
+house; the crazy water-pipe below Jeff's window creaked, the chimneys
+whistled, but the shutter banged no more. Jeff began to doze. "It's a
+great thing to be strong," the wind seemed to say as it charged upon the
+defenseless house, and then another voice seemed to reply, "A greater
+thing to be strong and gentle;" and hearing this he fell asleep.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+It was not yet daylight when he awoke with an idea that brought him
+hurriedly to his feet. Quickly dressing himself, he began to count the
+money in his pocket. Apparently the total was not satisfactory, as he
+endeavored to augment it by loose coins fished from the pockets of his
+other garments, and from the corner of his washstand drawer. Then he
+cautiously crept downstairs, seized his gun, and stole out of the still
+sleeping house. The wind had gone down, the rain had ceased, a few stars
+shone steadily in the north, and the shapeless bulk of the coach, its
+lamps extinguished, loomed high and dry above the lessening water, in
+the twilight. With a swinging tread Jeff strode up the hill and was soon
+upon the highway and stage road. A half-hour's brisk walk brought him
+to the summit, and the first rosy flashes of morning light. This enabled
+him to knock over half-a-dozen early quail, lured by the proverb, who
+were seeking their breakfast in the chaparral, and gave him courage to
+continue on his mission, which his perplexed face and irresolute manner
+had for the last few moments shown to be an embarrassing one. At last
+the white fences and imposing outbuildings of the "Summit Hotel" rose
+before him, and he uttered a deep sigh. There, basking in the first
+rays of the morning sun, stood his successful rival! Jeff looked at the
+well-built, comfortable structure, the commanding site, and the air of
+serene independence that seemed to possess it, and no longer wondered
+that the great world passed him by to linger and refresh itself there.
+
+He was relieved to find the landlord was not present in person, and so
+confided his business to the bar-keeper. At first it appeared that
+that functionary declined interference, and with many head-shakings and
+audible misgivings was inclined to await the coming of his principal,
+but a nearer view of Jeff's perplexed face, and an examination of Jeff's
+gun, and the few coins spread before him, finally induced him to produce
+certain articles, which he packed in a basket and handed to Jeff,
+taking the gun and coins in exchange. Thus relieved, Jeff set his face
+homewards, and ran a race with the morning into the valley, reaching
+the "Half-way House" as the sun laid waste its bare, bleak outlines, and
+relentlessly pointed out its defects one by one. It was cruel to Jeff at
+that moment, but he hugged his basket close and slipped to the back door
+and the kitchen, where his aunt was already at work.
+
+"I didn't know ye were up yet, aunty," said Jeff submissively. "It isn't
+more than six o'clock."
+
+"Thar's four more to feed at breakfast," said his aunt severely, "and
+yer's the top blown off the kitchen chimbly, and the fire only just got
+to go."
+
+Jeff saw that he was in time. The ordinary breakfast of the "Half-way
+House," not yet prepared, consisted of codfish, ham, yellow-ochre
+biscuit, made after a peculiar receipt of his aunt's, and potatoes.
+
+"I got a few fancy fixin's up at the Summit this morning, aunty," he
+began apologetically, "seein' we had sick folks, you know--you and the
+young lady--and thinkin' it might save you trouble. I've got 'em here,"
+and he shyly produced the basket.
+
+"If ye kin afford it, Jeff," responded his aunt resignedly, "I'm
+thankful."
+
+The reply was so unexpectedly mild for Aunt Sally, that Jeff put his
+arms around her and kissed her hard cheek. "And I've got some quail,
+aunty, knowin' you liked em."
+
+"I reckoned you was up to some such foolishness," said Aunt Sally,
+wiping her cheek with her apron, "when I missed yer gun from the hall."
+But the allusion was a dangerous one, and Jeff slipped away.
+
+He breakfasted early with Yuba Bill that morning; the latter gentleman's
+taciturnity being intensified at such moments through a long habit of
+confining himself strictly to eating in the limited time allowed his
+daily repasts, and it was not until they had taken the horses from the
+stable and were harnessing them to the coach that Jeff extracted from
+his companion some facts about his guests. They were Mr. and Mrs.
+Mayfield, Eastern tourists, who had been to the Sandwich Islands for the
+benefit of their daughter's health, and before returning to New York,
+intended, under the advice of their physician, to further try the
+effects of mountain air at the "Summit Hotel," on the invalid. They were
+apparently rich people, the coach had been engaged for them solely--even
+the mail and express had been sent on by a separate conveyance, so that
+they might be more independent. It is hardly necessary to say that
+this fact was by no means palatable to Bill--debarring him not only the
+social contact and attentions of the "Express Agent," but the selection
+of a box-seated passenger who always "acted like a man."
+
+"Ye kin kalkilate what kind of a pardner that 'ar yaller-livered
+Mayfield would make up on that box, partik'ly ez I heard before we
+started that he'd requested the kimpany's agent in Sacramento to select
+a driver ez didn't cuss, smoke, or drink. He did, sir, by gum!"
+
+"I reckon you were very careful, then, Bill," said Jeff.
+
+"In course," returned Bill, with a perfectly diabolical wink. "In
+course! You know that 'Blue Grass,'" pointing out a spirited leader;
+"she's a fair horse ez horses go, but she's apt to feel her oats on a
+down grade, and takes a pow'ful deal o' soothin' and explanation afore
+she buckles down to her reg'lar work. Well, sir, I exhorted and labored
+in a Christian-like way with that mare to that extent that I'm cussed if
+that chap didn't want to get down afore we got to the level!"
+
+"And the ladies?" asked Jeff, whose laugh--possibly from his morning's
+experience--was not as ready as formerly.
+
+"The ladies! Ef you mean that 'ar livin' skellington I packed up to yer
+house," said Bill promptly, "it's a pair of them in size and color,
+and ready for any first-class undertaker's team in the kintry. Why, you
+remember that curve on Break Neck hill, where the leaders allus look as
+if they was alongside o' the coach and faced the other way? Well, that
+woman sticks her skull outer the window, and sez she, confidential-like
+to old yaller-belly, sez she, 'William Henry,' sez she, 'tell that man
+his horses are running away!'"
+
+"You didn't get to see the--the--daughter, Bill, did you?" asked Jeff,
+whose laugh had become quite uneasy.
+
+"No, I didn't," said Bill, with sudden and inexplicable vehemence, "and
+the less you see of her, Jefferson Briggs, the better for you."
+
+Too confounded and confused by Bill's manner to question further, Jeff
+remained silent until they drew up at the door of the "Half-way
+House." But here another surprise awaited him. Mr. Mayfield, erect and
+dignified, stood upon the front porch as the coach drove up.
+
+"Driver!" began Mr. Mayfield.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Driver," said Mr. Mayfield, slightly weakening under Bill's eye, "I
+shall want you no longer. I have"--
+
+"Is he speaking to me?" said Bill audibly to Jeff, "'cause they call me
+'Yuba Bill' yer abouts."
+
+"He is," said Jeff hastily.
+
+"Mebbee he's drunk," said Bill audibly; "a drop or two afore breakfast
+sometimes upsets his kind."
+
+"I was saying, Bill," said Mr. Mayfield, becoming utterly limp and weak
+again under Bill's cold gray eyes, "that I've changed my mind, and shall
+stop here awhile. My daughter seems already benefited by the change. You
+can take my traps from the boot and leave them here."
+
+Bill laid down his lines resignedly, coolly surveyed Mr. Mayfield, the
+house, and the half-pleased, half-frightened Jeff, and then proceeded
+to remove the luggage from the boot, all the while whistling loud and
+offensive incredulity. Then he climbed back to his box. Mr. Mayfield,
+completely demoralized under this treatment, as a last resort essayed
+patronage.
+
+"You can say to the Sacramento agents, Bill, that I am entirely
+satisfied, and"--
+
+"Ye needn't fear but I'll give ye a good character," interrupted Bill
+coolly, gathering up his lines. The whip snapped, the six horses dashed
+forward as one, the coach plunged down the road and was gone.
+
+With its disappearance, Mr. Mayfield stiffened slightly again. "I have
+just told your aunt, Mr. Briggs," he said, turning upon Jeff, "that my
+daughter has expressed a desire to remain here a few days; she has slept
+well, seems to be invigorated by the air, and although we expected to
+go on to the 'Summit,' Mrs. Mayfield and myself are willing to accede
+to her wishes. Your house seems to be new and clean. Your table--judging
+from the breakfast this morning--is quite satisfactory."
+
+Jeff, in the first flush of delight at this news, forgot what that
+breakfast had cost him--forgot all his morning's experience, and, I
+fear, when he did remember it, was too full of a vague, hopeful courage
+to appreciate it. Conscious of showing too much pleasure, he affected
+the necessity of an immediate interview with his aunt, in the kitchen.
+But his short cut round the house was arrested by a voice and figure. It
+was Miss Mayfield, wrapped in a shawl and seated in a chair, basking in
+the sunlight at one of the bleakest and barest angles of the house. Jeff
+stopped in a delicious tremor.
+
+As we are dealing with facts, however, it would be well to look at the
+cause of this tremor with our own eyes and not Jeff's. To be plain, my
+dear madam, as she basked in that remorseless, matter-of-fact California
+sunshine, she looked her full age-twenty-five, if a day! There were
+wrinkles in the corners of her dark eyes, contracted and frowning
+in that strong, merciless light; there was a nervous pallor in her
+complexion; but being one of those "fast colored" brunettes, whose dyes
+are a part of their temperament, no sickness nor wear could bleach it
+out. The red of her small mouth was darker than yours, I wot, and there
+were certain faint lines from the corners of her delicate nostrils
+indicating alternate repression and excitement under certain
+experiences, which are not found in the classic ideals. Now Jeff knew
+nothing of the classic ideal--did not know that a thousand years ago
+certain sensual idiots had, with brush and chisel, inflicted upon the
+world the personification of the strongest and most delicate, most
+controlling and most subtle passion that humanity is capable of, in
+the likeness of a thick-waisted, idealess, expressionless, perfectly
+contented female animal; and that thousands of idiots had since then
+insisted upon perpetuating this model for the benefit of a world that
+had gone on sighing for, pining for, fighting for, and occasionally
+blowing its brains out over types far removed from that idiotic
+standard.
+
+Consequently Jeff saw only a face full of possibilities and
+probabilities, framed in a small delicate oval, saw a slight woman's
+form--more than usually small--and heard a low voice, to him full of
+gentle pride, passion, pathos, and human weakness, and was helpless.
+
+"I only said 'Good-morning,'" said Miss Mayfield, with that slight, arch
+satisfaction in the observation of masculine bashfulness, which the best
+of her sex cannot forego.
+
+"Thank you, miss; good-morning. I've been wanting to say to you that I
+hope you wasn't mad, you know," stammered Jeff, desperately intent upon
+getting off his apology.
+
+"It is so lovely this morning--such a change!" continued Miss Mayfield.
+
+"Yes, miss! You know I reckoned--at least what your father said, made me
+kalkilate that you"--
+
+Miss Mayfield, still smiling, knitted her brows and went on: "I slept
+so well last night," she said gratefully, "and feel so much better this
+morning, that I ventured out. I seem to be drinking in health in this
+clear sunlight."
+
+"Certainly miss. As I was sayin', your father says his daughter is in
+the coach; and Bill says, says he to me, 'I'll pack--I'll carry the
+old--I'll bring up Mrs. Mayfield, if you'll bring up the daughter;'
+and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep--like in the corner, and
+bein' small, why miss, you know how nat'ral it is, I"--
+
+"Oh, Mr. Jeff! Mr. Briggs!" said Miss Mayfield plaintively, "don't,
+please--don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year.
+You thought I was a child, I know, and--well, you find," she said
+audaciously, suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a
+rifle, "you find--well?"
+
+What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible. Miss Mayfield saw
+enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek. Thus
+does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over.
+
+The color faded. "It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless,
+and to put everybody to such trouble, isn't it, Mr. Jeff? I beg your
+pardon--your aunt calls you Jeff."
+
+"Please call me Jeff," said Jeff, to his own surprise rapidly gaining
+courage. "Everybody calls me that."
+
+Miss Mayfield smiled. "I suppose I must do what everybody does. So it
+seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get
+better or worse?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Therefore I won't detain you now. I only wanted to thank you for your
+gentleness last night, and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give
+me my death."
+
+She smiled and nodded her small head, and wrapped her shawl again
+closely around her shoulders, and turned her eyes upon the mountains,
+gestures which the now quick-minded Jeff interpreted as a gentle
+dismissal, and flew to seek his aunt.
+
+Here he grew practical. Ready money was needed; for the "Half-way House"
+was such a public monument of ill-luck, that Jeff had no credit. He must
+keep up the table to the level of that fortunate breakfast--to do which
+he had $1.50 in the till, left by Bill, and $2.50 produced by his Aunt
+Sally from her work-basket.
+
+"Why not ask Mr. Mayfield to advance ye suthin?" said Aunt Sally.
+
+The blood flew to Jeff's face. "Never! Don't say that again, aunty."
+
+The tone and manner were so unlike Jeff that the old lady sat down half
+frightened, and taking the corners of her apron in her hands began to
+whimper.
+
+"Thar now, aunty! I didn't mean nothin',--only if you care to have me
+about the place any longer, and I reckon it's little good I am any way,"
+he added, with a new-found bitterness in his tone, "ye'll not ask me to
+do that."
+
+"What's gone o' ye, Jeff?" said his aunt lugubriously; "ye ain't nat'ral
+like."
+
+Jeff laughed. "See here, aunty; I'm goin' to take your advice. You know
+Rabbit?"
+
+"The mare?"
+
+"Yes; I'm going to sell her. The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollars
+for her last week."
+
+"Ef ye'd done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o'
+keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off."
+Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to "improve the occasion," but
+preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the "improved." "Well, I
+hope he mayn't change his mind."
+
+Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fifty
+miles of the "Half-way House." Nevertheless he went briskly to the
+stable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while,
+and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which
+Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red
+flannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it was
+displaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his arms
+around Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in the
+bosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment. Rabbit
+becoming uneasy, Jeff's mood changed too, and having caparisoned himself
+and charger in true vaquero style, not without a little Mexican dandyism
+as to the set of his doeskin trousers, and the tie of his red sash, put
+a sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle.
+
+Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as a
+natural instinct, and not as a purely artificial habit of horse and
+rider, consequently he was not perched up, jockey fashion, with a
+knee-grip for his body, and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast's
+mouth, but rode with long, loose stirrups, his legs clasping the barrel
+of his horse, his single rein lying loose upon her neck, leaving her
+head free as the wind. After this fashion he had often emerged from a
+cloud of dust on the red mountain road, striking admiration into the
+hearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers, and leaving a trail
+of pleasant incense in the dust behind him. It was therefore with
+considerable confidence in himself, and a little human vanity, that he
+dashed round the house, and threw his mare skilfully on her haunches
+exactly a foot before Miss Mayfield--himself a resplendent vision of
+flying riata, crimson scarf, fawn-colored trousers, and jingling silver
+spurs.
+
+"Kin I do anythin' for ye, miss, at the Forks?"
+
+Miss Mayfield looked up quietly. "I think not," she said indifferently,
+as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence.
+
+Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards, caught her up sharply,
+swung her round on her off hind heel, permitted her to paw the air once
+or twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet, and then, with another
+dash forward, pulled her up again just before she apparently took Miss
+Mayfield and her chair in a running leap.
+
+"Are you sure, miss?" asked Jeff, with a flushed face and a rather
+lugubrious voice.
+
+"Quite so, thank you," she said coldly, looking past this centaur to the
+wooded mountain beyond.
+
+Jeff, thoroughly crushed, was pacing meekly away when a childlike voice
+stopped him.
+
+"If you are going near a carpenter's shop you might get a new shutter
+for my window; it blew away last night."
+
+"It did, miss?"
+
+"Yes," said the shrill voice of Aunt Sally, from the doorway, "in course
+it did! Ye must be crazy, Jeff, for thar it stands in No. 8, whar ye
+must have put it after ye picked it up outside."
+
+Jeff, conscious that Miss Mayfield's eyes were on his suffused face,
+stammered "that he would attend to it," and put spurs to the mare, eager
+only to escape.
+
+It was not his only discomfiture; for the blacksmith, seeing Jeff's
+nervousness and anxiety, was suspicious of something wrong, as the world
+is apt to be, and appeased his conscience after the worldly fashion,
+by driving a hard bargain with the doubtful brother in affliction--the
+morality of a horse trade residing always with the seller. Whereby
+Master Jeff received only eighty dollars for horse and outfit--worth at
+least two hundred--and was also mulcted of forty dollars, principal and
+interest for past service of the blacksmith. Jeff walked home with
+forty dollars in his pocket--capital to prosecute his honest calling
+of innkeeper; the blacksmith retired to an adjoining tavern to discuss
+Jeff's affairs, and further reduce his credit. Yet I doubt which was the
+happier--the blacksmith estimating his possible gains, and doubtful
+of some uncertain sequence in his luck, or Jeff, temporarily relieved,
+boundlessly hopeful, and filled with the vague delights of a first
+passion. The only discontented brute in the whole transaction was poor
+Rabbit, who, missing certain attentions, became indignant, after the
+manner of her sex, bit a piece out of her crib, kicked a hole in her
+box, and receiving a bad character from the blacksmith, gave a worse one
+to her late master.
+
+Jeff's purchases were of a temporary and ornamental quality, but not
+always judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark from
+Miss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steel
+fork, which was part of the table equipage of the "Half-way House," he
+purchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as "split
+spoons," and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not only
+repaired the window-shutter, but tempered the glaring window itself
+with a bit of curtain; he half carpeted Miss Mayfield's bed-room with
+wild-cat skins and the now historical bear-skin, and felt himself
+overpaid when that young lady, passing the soft tabbyskins across her
+cheek, declared they were "lovely." For Miss Mayfield, deprecating
+slaughter in the abstract, accepted its results gratefully, like the
+rest of her sex, and while willing to "let the hart ungalled play,"
+nevertheless was able to console herself with its venison. The woods,
+besides yielding aid and comfort of this kind to the distressed damsel,
+were flamboyant with vivid spring blossoms, and Jeff lit up the cold,
+white walls of her virgin cell with demonstrative color, and made--what
+his aunt, a cleanly soul, whose ideas of that quality were based upon
+the absence of any color whatever, called--"a litter."
+
+The result of which was to make Miss Mayfield, otherwise lanquid and
+ennuye, welcome Jeff's presence with a smile; to make Jeff, otherwise
+anxious, eager, and keenly attentive, mute and silent in her presence.
+Two symptoms bad for Jeff.
+
+Meantime Mr. Mayfield's small conventional spirit pined for fellowship,
+only to be found in larger civilizations, and sought, under plea of
+business, a visit to Sacramento, where a few of the Mayfield type, still
+surviving, were to be found.
+
+This was a relief to Jeff, who only through his regard for the daughter,
+was kept from open quarrel with the father. He fancied Miss Mayfield
+felt relieved too, although Jeff had noticed that Mayfield had deferred
+to his daughter more often than his wife--over whom your conventional
+small autocrat is always victorious. It takes the legal matrimonial
+contract to properly develop the first-class tyrant, male or female.
+
+On one of these days Jeff was returning through the woods from marketing
+at the Forks, which, since the sale of Rabbit, had became a foot-sore
+and tedious business. He had reached the edge of the forest, and through
+the wider-spaced trees, the bleak sunlit plateau of his house was
+beginning to open out, when he stopped instantly. I know not what Jeff
+had been thinking of, as he trudged along, but here, all at once, he was
+thrilled and possessed with the odor of some faint, foreign perfume. He
+flushed a little at first, and then turned pale. Now the woods were as
+full of as delicate, as subtle, as grateful, and, I wot, far healthier
+and purer odors than this; but this represented to Jeff the physical
+contiguity of Miss Mayfield, who had the knack--peculiar to some of her
+sex--of selecting a perfume that ideally identified her. Jeff looked
+around cautiously; at the foot of a tree hard by lay one of her wraps,
+still redolent of her. Jeff put down the bag which, in lieu of a market
+basket, he was carrying on his shoulder, and with a blushing face hid it
+behind a tree. It contained her dinner!
+
+He took a few steps forwards with an assumption of ease and
+unconsciousness. Then he stopped, for not a hundred yards distant
+sat--Miss Mayfield on a mossy boulder, her cloak hanging from her
+shoulders, her hands clasped round her crossed knees, and one little
+foot out--an exasperating combination of Evangeline and little Red
+Riding Hood in everything, I fear, but credulousness and self-devotion.
+She looked up as he walked towards her (non constat that the little
+witch had not already seen him half a mile away!) and smiled sweetly
+as she looked at him. So sweetly, indeed, that poor Jeff felt like the
+hulking wolf of the old world fable, and hesitated--as that wolf did
+not. The California faunae have possibly depreciated.
+
+"Come here!" she cried, in a small head voice, not unlike a bird's
+twitter.
+
+Jeff lumbered on clumsily. His high boots had become suddenly very
+heavy.
+
+"I'm so glad to see you. I've just tired poor mother out--I'm always
+tiring people out--and she's gone back to the house to write letters.
+Sit down, Mr. Jeff, do, please!"
+
+Jeff, feeling uncomfortably large in Miss Mayfield's presence, painfully
+seated himself on the edge of a very low stone, which had the effect
+of bringing his knees up on a level with his chin, and affected an ease
+glaringly simulated.
+
+"Or lie down, there, Mr. Jeff--it is so comfortable."
+
+Jeff, with a dreadful conviction that he was crashing down like a
+falling pine-tree, managed at last to acquire a recumbent position at a
+respectful distance from the little figure.
+
+"There, isn't it nice?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Mayfield."
+
+"But, perhaps," said Miss Mayfield, now that she had him down, "perhaps
+you too have got something to do. Dear me! I'm like that naughty boy in
+the story-book, who went round to all the animals, in turn, asking them
+to play with him. He could only find the butterfly who had nothing to
+do. I don't wonder he was disgusted. I hate butterflies."
+
+Love clarifies the intellect! Jeff, astonished at himself, burst out,
+"Why, look yer, Miss Mayfield, the butterfly only hez a day or two
+to--to--to live and--be happy!"
+
+Miss Mayfield crossed her knees again, and instantly, after the sublime
+fashion of her sex, scattered his intellect by a swift transition from
+the abstract to the concrete. "But you're not a butterfly, Mr. Jeff.
+You're always doing something. You've been hunting."
+
+"No-o!" said Jeff, scarlet, as he thought of his gun in pawn at the
+"Summit."
+
+"But you do hunt; I know it."
+
+"How?"
+
+"You shot those quail for me the morning after I came. I heard you go
+out--early--very early."
+
+"Why, you allowed you slept so well that night, Miss Mayfield."
+
+"Yes; but there's a kind of delicious half-sleep that sick people have
+sometimes, when they know and are gratefully conscious that other people
+are doing things for them, and it makes them rest all the sweeter."
+
+There was a dead silence. Jeff, thrilling all over, dared not say
+anything to dispel his delicious dream. Miss Mayfield, alarmed at his
+readiness with the butterfly illustration, stopped short. They both
+looked at the prospect, at the distant "Summit Hotel"--a mere snow-drift
+on the mountain--at the clear sunlight on the barren plateau, at the
+bleak, uncompromising "Half-way House," and said nothing.
+
+"I ought to be very grateful," at last began Miss Mayfield, in quite
+another voice, and a suggestion that she was now approaching real and
+profitable conversation, "that I'm so much better. This mountain air has
+been like balm to me. I feel I am growing stronger day by day. I do not
+wonder that you are so healthy and so strong as you are, Mr. Jeff."
+
+Jeff, who really did not know before that he was so healthy,
+apologetically admitted the fact. At the same time, he was miserably
+conscious that Miss Mayfield's condition, despite her ill health, was
+very superior to his own.
+
+"A month ago," she continued reflectively, "my mother would never have
+thought it possible to leave me here alone. Perhaps she may be getting
+worried now."
+
+Miss Mayfield had calculated over much on Jeff's recumbent position. To
+her surprise and slight mortification, he rose instantly to his feet,
+and said anxiously,
+
+"Ef you think so, miss, p'raps I'm keeping you here."
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Jeff. Your being here is a sufficient excuse for my
+staying," she replied, with the large dignity of a small body.
+
+Jeff, mentally and physically crushed again, came down a little heavier
+than before, and reclined humbly at her feet. Second knock-down blow for
+Miss Mayfield.
+
+"Come, Mr. Jeff," said the triumphant goddess, in her first voice, "tell
+me something about yourself. How do you live here--I mean; what do you
+do? You ride, of course--and very well too, I can tell you! But you
+know that. And of course that scarf and the silver spurs and the whole
+dashing equipage are not intended entirely for yourself. No! Some young
+woman is made happy by that exhibition, of course. Well, then, there's
+the riding down to see her, and perhaps the riding out with her,
+and--what else?"
+
+"Miss Mayfield," said Jeff, suddenly rising above his elbow and his
+grammar, "thar isn't no young woman! Thar isn't another soul except
+yourself that I've laid eyes on, or cared to see since I've been yer. Ef
+my aunt hez been telling ye that--she's--she--she--she--she--lies."
+
+Absolute, undiluted truth, even of a complimentary nature, is
+confounding to most women. Miss Mayfield was no exception to her sex.
+She first laughed, as she felt she ought to, and properly might with any
+other man than Jeff; then she got frightened, and said hurriedly, "No,
+no! you misunderstand me. Your aunt has said nothing." And then she
+stopped with a pink spot on her cheek-bones. First blood for Jeff!
+
+Now this would never do; it was worse than the butterflies! She rose to
+her full height--four feet eleven and a half--and drew her cloak over
+her shoulders. "I think I will return to the house," she said quietly;
+"I suppose I ought not to overtask my strength."
+
+"You'd better let me go with you, miss," said Jeff submissively.
+
+"I will, on one condition," she said, recovering her archness, with a
+little venom in it, I fear. "You were going home, too, when I called to
+you. Now, I do not intend to let you leave that bag behind that tree,
+and then have to come back for it, just because you feel obliged to
+go with me. Bring it with you on one arm, and I'll take the other, or
+else--I'll go alone. Don't be alarmed," she added softly; "I'm stronger
+than I was the first night I came, when you carried me and all my
+worldly goods besides."
+
+She turned upon him her subtle magnetic eyes, and looked at him as she
+had the first night they met. Jeff turned away bewildered, but presently
+appeared again with the bag on his shoulder, and her wrap on his arm.
+As she slipped her little hand over his sleeve, he began, apologetically
+and nervously,
+
+"When I said that about Aunt Sally, miss, I"--
+
+The hand immediately became limp, the grasp conventional.
+
+"I was mad, miss," Jeff blundered on, "and I don't see how you believed
+it--knowing everything ez you do."
+
+"How knowing everything as I do?" asked Miss Mayfield coldly.
+
+"Why, about the quail, and about the bag!"
+
+"Oh," said Miss Mayfield.
+
+Five minutes later, Yuba Bill nearly ditched his coach in his utter
+amazement at an apparently simple spectacle--a tall, good-looking young
+fellow, in a red shirt and high boots, carrying a bag on his back, and
+beside him, hanging confidentially on his arm, a small, slight, pretty
+girl in a red cloak. "Nothing mean about her, eh, Bill?" said as
+admiring box-passenger. "Young couple, I reckon, just out from the
+States."
+
+"No!" roared Bill.
+
+"Oh, well, his sweetheart, I reckon?" suggested the box-passenger.
+
+"Nary time!" growled Bill. "Look yer! I know 'em both, and they knows
+me. Did ye notiss she never drops his arm when she sees the stage
+comin', but kinder trapes along jist the same? Had they been courtin',
+she'd hev dropped his arm like pizen, and walked on t'other side the
+road."
+
+Nevertheless, for some occult reason, Bill was evidently out of humor;
+and for the next few miles exhorted the impenitent Blue Grass horse with
+considerable fervor.
+
+Meanwhile this pair, outwardly the picture of pastoral conjugality,
+slowly descended the hill. In that brief time, failing to get at any
+further facts regarding Jeff's life, or perhaps reading the story quite
+plainly, Miss Mayfield had twittered prettily about herself. She painted
+her tropic life in the Sandwich Islands--her delicious "laziness," as
+she called it; "for, you know," she added, "although I had the excuse of
+being an invalid, and of living in the laziest climate in the world, and
+of having money, I think, Mr. Jeff, that I'm naturally lazy. Perhaps if
+I lived here long enough, and got well again, I might do something, but
+I don't think I could ever be like your aunt. And there she is now,
+Mr. Jeff, making signs for you to hasten. No, don't mind me, but run on
+ahead; else I shall have her blaming me for demoralizing you too. Go; I
+insist upon it! I can walk the rest of the way alone. Will you go? You
+won't? Then I shall stop here and not stir another step forward until
+you do."
+
+She stopped, half jestingly, half earnestly, in the middle of the road,
+and emphasized her determination with a nod of her head--an action that,
+however, shook her hat first rakishly over one eye, and then on the
+ground. At which Jeff laughed, picked it up, presented it to her, and
+then ran off to the house.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+His aunt met him angrily on the porch. "Thar ye are at last, and yer's a
+stranger waitin to see you. He's been axin all sorts o' questions, about
+the house and the business, and kinder snoopin' round permiskiss.
+I don't like his looks, Jeff, but thet's no reason why ye should be
+gallivantin' round in business hours."
+
+A large, thick-set man, with a mechanical smile that was an overt act of
+false pretense, was lounging in the bar-room. Jeff dimly remembered to
+have seen him at the last county election, distributing tickets at the
+polls. This gave Jeff a slight prejudice against him, but a greater
+presentiment of some vague evil in the air caused him to motion the
+stranger to an empty room in the angle of the house behind the barroom,
+which was too near the hall through which Miss Mayfield must presently
+pass.
+
+It was an infelicitous act of precaution, for at that very moment Miss
+Mayfield slowly passed beneath its open window, and seeing her chair
+in the sunny angle, dropped into it for rest and possibly meditation.
+Consequently she overheard every word of the following colloquy.
+
+The Stranger's voice: "Well, now, seein' ez I've been waitin' for ye
+over an hour, off and on, and ez my bizness with ye is two words, it
+strikes me yer puttin' on a little too much style in this yer interview,
+Mr. Jefferson Briggs."
+
+Jeff's voice (a little husky with restraint): "What is yer business?"
+
+The stranger's voice (lazily): "It's an attachment on this yer property
+for principal, interest, and costs--one hundred and twelve dollars and'
+seventy-five cents, at the suit of Cyrus Parker."
+
+Jeff's voice (in quick surprise): "Parker? Why, I saw him only
+yesterday, and he agreed to wait a spell longer."
+
+The Stranger's voice: "Mebbee he did! Mebbee he heard afterwards suthin'
+about the goin's on up yar. Mebbee he heard suthin' o' property bein'
+converted into ready cash--sich property ez horses, guns, and sich!
+Mebbee he heard o' gay and festive doin's--chickin every day, fresh
+eggs, butcher's meat, port wine, and sich! Mebbee he allowed that his
+chances o' gettin' his own honest grub outer his debt was lookin' mighty
+slim! Mebbee" (louder) "he thought he'd ask the man who bought yer
+horse, and the man you pawned your gun to, what was goin' on! Mebbee he
+thought he'd like to get a holt a suthin' himself, even if it was only
+some of that yar chickin and port wine!"
+
+Jeff's voice (earnestly and hastily): "They're not for me. I have a
+family boarding here, with a sick daughter. You don't think--"
+
+The Stranger's voice (lazily): "I reckon! I seed you and her
+pre-ambulating down the hill, lockin' arms. A good deal o' style,
+Jeff--fancy! expensive! How does Aunt Sally take it?"
+
+A slight shaking of the floor and window--a dead silence.
+
+The Stranger's voice (very faintly): "For God's sake, let me up!"
+
+Jeff's voice (very distinctly): "Another word! raise your voice above a
+whisper, and by the living G--"
+
+Silence.
+
+The Stranger's voice (gasping): "I--I--promise!"
+
+Jeff's voice (low and desperate): "Get up out of that! Sit down thar!
+Now hear me! I'm not resisting your process. If you had all h-ll as
+witnesses you daren't say that. I've shut up your foul jaw, and kept
+it from poisoning the air, and thar's no law in Californy agin it! Now
+listen. What! You will, will you?"
+
+Everything quiet; a bird twittering on the window ledge, nothing more.
+
+The Stranger's voice (very huskily): "I cave! Gimme some whiskey."
+
+Jeff's voice: "When we're through. Now listen! You can take possession
+of the house; you can stand behind the bar and take every cent that
+comes in; you can prevent anything going out; but as long as Mr.
+Mayfield and his family stay here, by the living God--law or no
+law--I'll be boss here, and they shall never know it!"
+
+The Stranger's voice (weakly and submissively): "That sounds square.
+Anythin' not agin the law and in reason, Jeff!"
+
+Jeff's voice: "I mean to be square. Here is all the money I have, ten
+dollars. Take it for any extra trouble you may have to satisfy me."
+
+A pause--the clinking of coin.
+
+The Stranger's voice (deprecatingly): "Well! I reckon that would be
+about fair. Consider the trouble" (a weak laugh here) "just now. 'Tain't
+every man ez hez your grip. He! he! Ef ye hadn't took me so suddent
+like--he! he!--well!--how about that ar whiskey?"
+
+Jeff's voice (coolly): "I'll bring it."
+
+Steps, silence, coughing, spitting, and throat-clearing from the
+stranger.
+
+Steps again, and the click of glass.
+
+The Stranger's voice (submissively): "In course I must go back to the
+Forks and fetch up my duds. Ye know what I mean! Thar now--don't, Mr.
+Jeff!"
+
+Jeff's voice (sternly): "If I find you go back on me--"
+
+The Stranger's voice (hurriedly): "Thar's my hand on it. Ye can count on
+Jim Dodd."
+
+Steps again. Silence. A bird lights on the window ledge, and peers into
+the room. All is at rest.
+
+Jeff and the deputy-sheriff walked through the bar-room and out on the
+porch. Miss Mayfield in an arm-chair looked up from her book.
+
+"I've written a letter to my father that I'd like to have mailed at
+the Forks this afternoon," she said, looking from Jeff to the stranger;
+"perhaps this gentleman will oblige me by taking it, if he's going that
+way."
+
+"I'll take it, miss," said Jeff hurriedly.
+
+"No," said Miss Mayfield archly, "I've taken up too much of your time
+already."
+
+"I'm at your service, miss," said the stranger, considerably affected by
+the spectacle of this pretty girl, who certainly at that moment, in
+her bright eyes and slightly pink cheeks, belied the suggestion of ill
+health.
+
+"Thank you. Dear me!" She was rummaging in a reticule and in her pocket,
+etc. "Oh, Mr. Jeff!"
+
+"Yes, miss?"
+
+"I'm so frightened!"
+
+"How, miss?"
+
+"I have--yes!--I have left that letter on the stump in the woods, where
+I was sitting when you came. Would you--"
+
+Jeff darted into the house, seized his hat, and stopped. He was thinking
+of the stranger.
+
+"Could you be so kind?"
+
+Jeff looked in her agitated face, cast a meaning glance at the stranger,
+and was off like a shot.
+
+The fire dropped out of Miss Mayfield's eyes and cheeks. She turned
+toward the stranger.
+
+"Please step this way."
+
+She always hated her own childish treble. But just at that moment she
+thought she had put force and dignity into it, and was correspondingly
+satisfied. The deputy sheriff was equally pleased, and came towards the
+upright little figure with open admiration.
+
+"Your name is Dodd--James Dodd?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"You are the deputy sheriff of the county? Don't look round--there is no
+one here!"
+
+"Well, miss--if you say so--yes!"
+
+"My father--Mr. Mayfield--understood so. I regret he is not here. I
+regret still more I could not have seen you before you saw Mr. Briggs,
+as he wished me to."
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"My father is a friend of Mr. Briggs, and knows something of his
+affairs. There was a debt to a Mr. Parker" (here Miss Mayfield
+apparently consulted an entry in her tablets) "of one hundred and twelve
+dollars and seventy-five cents--am I right?"
+
+The deputy, with great respect: "That is the figgers."
+
+"Which he wished to pay without the knowledge of Mr. Briggs, who would
+not have consented to it."
+
+The official opened his eyes. "Yes, miss."
+
+"Well, as Mr. Mayfield is NOT here, I am here to pay it for him. You can
+take a check on Wells, Fargo & Co., I suppose?"
+
+"Certainly, miss."
+
+She took a check-book and pen and ink from her reticule, and filled up a
+check. She handed it to him, and the pen and ink. "You are to give me a
+receipt."
+
+The deputy looked at the matter-of-fact little figure, and signed and
+handed over the receipted bill.
+
+"My father said Mr. Briggs was not to know this."
+
+"Certainly not, miss."
+
+"It was Mr. Briggs's intention to let the judgment take its course, and
+give up the house. You are a man of business, Mr. Dodd, and know that
+this is ridiculous!"
+
+The deputy laughed. "In course, miss."
+
+"And whatever Mr. Briggs may have proposed to you to do, when you go
+back to the Forks, you are to write him a letter, and say that you will
+simply hold the judgment without levy."
+
+"All right, miss," said the deputy, not ill-pleased to hold himself in
+this superior attitude to Jeff.
+
+"And--"
+
+"Yes, miss?"
+
+She looked steadily at him. "Mr. Briggs told my father that he would pay
+you ten dollars for the privilege of staying here."
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"And, of course, THAT'S not necessary now."
+
+"No-o, miss."
+
+A very small white hand--a mere child's hand--was here extended, palm
+uppermost.
+
+The official, demoralized completely, looked at it a moment, then went
+into his pockets and counted out into the palm the coins given by Jeff;
+they completely filled the tiny receptacle.
+
+Miss Mayfield counted the money gravely, and placed it in her
+portemonnaie with a snap.
+
+Certain qualities affect certain natures. This practical business act of
+the diminutive beauty before him--albeit he was just ten dollars out
+of pocket by it--struck the official into helpless admiration. He
+hesitated.
+
+"That's all," said Miss Mayfield coolly; "you need not wait. The letter
+was only an excuse to get Mr. Briggs out of the way."
+
+"I understand ye, miss." He hesitated still. "Do you reckon to stop in
+these parts long?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"'Cause ye ought to come down some day to the Forks."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good morning, miss."
+
+"Good morning."
+
+Yet at the corner of the house the rascal turned and looked back at the
+little figure in the sunlight. He had just been physically overcome by a
+younger man--he had lost ten dollars--he had a wife and three children.
+He forgot all this. He had been captivated by Miss Mayfield!
+
+That practical heroine sat there five minutes. At the end of that time
+Jeff came bounding down the hill, his curls damp with perspiration; his
+fresh, honest face the picture of woe, HER woe, for the letter could not
+be found!
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Jeff. I wrote another and gave it to him."
+
+Two tears were standing on her cheeks. Jeff turned white.
+
+"Good God, miss!"
+
+"It's nothing. You were right, Mr. Jeff! I ought not to have walked down
+here alone. I'm very, very tired, and--so--so miserable."
+
+What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? I
+fear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief,
+and said: "Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I've
+sent him off."
+
+"Nothing," said Jeff hurriedly; and she saw that all his other troubles
+had vanished at the sight of her weakness. She rose tremblingly from her
+seat. "I think I will go in now, but I think--I think--I must ask you
+to--to--carry me!"
+
+Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!
+
+The next moment, Jeff, pale, strong, passionate, but tender as a
+mother, lifted her in his arms and brought her into the sitting-room.
+A simultaneous ejaculation broke from Aunt Sally and Mrs. Mayfield--the
+possible comment of posterity on the whole episode.
+
+"Well, Jeff, I reckoned you'd be up to suthin' like that!"
+
+"Well, Jessie! I knew you couldn't be trusted."
+
+
+Mr. James Dodd did not return from the Forks that afternoon, to Jeff's
+vague uneasiness. Towards evening a messenger brought a note from him,
+written on the back of a printed legal form, to this effect:
+
+
+DEAR SIR--Seeing as you Intend to act on the Square in regard to that
+little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you
+but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink--respy
+yours, J. DODD.
+
+
+In this latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of his
+heads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could see
+her "onct in a wile," and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent
+Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked,
+and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of his
+absence. "He might hev been ugly," said Jeff. He did not know how, in
+this selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, active
+ugliness.
+
+Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind was
+getting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on his
+porch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparition
+of Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usual
+refreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain from
+mixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill,
+partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowly
+drew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Bill
+without them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when he
+laid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, which
+gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.
+
+"Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear
+up yer this evening," said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, "I don't know
+ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the
+Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!"
+
+Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.
+
+"Because ef ye ARE," said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of
+the overgrown spiders with his fist, "I've got a word or two to say to
+the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez
+blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word
+to him at the right time."
+
+"Bill," said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only
+from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--"thar's a sick woman
+in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it
+quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low."
+
+Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your
+shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more
+than his words, dropped his own.
+
+"I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the
+last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the
+matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all
+your doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe that
+sneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't and
+wouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--ef
+I'd allowed it to be the square thing for ye. But I know ye, Jeff. I
+know what's in your BLOOD. I knew your father--allus dreamin', hopin,'
+waitin'; I know YOU, Jeff, dreamin', hopin', waitin' till the end. And I
+stood by, givin' you a free rein, and let it come!"
+
+Jeff buried his face in his hands.
+
+"It ain't your blame--it's blood! It ain't a week ago ez the kimpany
+passes me over a hoss. 'Three-quarters Morgan,' sez they. Sez I: 'Wot's
+the other quarter?' Sez they: 'A Mexican half-breed.' Well, she was
+a fair sort of hoss. Comin' down Heavytree Hill last trip, we meets a
+drove o' Spanish steers. In course she goes wild directly. Blood!"
+
+Bill raised his glass, softly swirled its contents round and round,
+tasted it, and set it down.
+
+"The kepple o' words I had to say to ye was this: Git up and git!"
+
+Something like this had passed through Jeff's mind the day before the
+Mayfields came. Something like it had haunted him once or twice since.
+He turned quickly upon the speaker.
+
+"Ez how? you sez," said Bill, catching at the hook. "I drives up yer
+some night, and you sez to me, 'Bill, hev you got two seats over to the
+Divide for me and aunty--out on a pasear.' And I sez, 'I happen to hev
+one inside and one on the box with me.' And you hands out yer traps and
+any vallybles ye don't want ter leave, and you puts your aunt inside,
+and gets up on the box with me. And you sez to me, ez man to man,
+'Bill,' sez you, 'might you hev a kepple o' hundred dollars about ye
+that ye could lend a man ez was leaving the county, dead broke?' and I
+sez, 'I've got it, and I know of an op'nin' for such a man in the next
+county.' And you steps into THAT op'nin', and your creditors--'spesh'ly
+Parker--slips into THIS, and in a week they offers to settle with ye ten
+cents on the dollar."
+
+Jeff started, flushed, trembled, recovered himself, and after a moment
+said, doggedly: "I can't do it, Bill; I couldn't."
+
+"In course," said Bill, putting his hands slowly into his pockets, and
+stretching his legs out--"in course ye can't because of a woman!"
+
+Jeff turned upon him like a hunted bear. Both men rose, but Bill already
+had his hand on Jeff's shoulder.
+
+"I reckoned a minute ago there was a sick gal in the house! Who's going
+to make a row now! Who's going to stamp and tear round, eh?"
+
+Jeff sank back on his chair.
+
+"I said thar was a woman," continued Bill; "thar allus is one! Let a man
+be hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his track is a woman's feet.
+I don't say anythin' agin this gal, ez a gal. The best of 'em, Jeff, is
+only guide-posts to p'int a fellow on his right road, and only a fool or
+a drunken man holds on to 'em or leans agin em. Allowin' this gal is all
+you think she is, how far is your guide-post goin' with ye, eh? Is she
+goin' to leave her father and mother for ye? Is she goin' to give up
+herself and her easy ways and her sicknesses for ye? Is she willin' to
+take ye for a perpetooal landlord the rest of her life? And if she is,
+Jeff, are ye the man to let her? Are ye willin' to run on her errants,
+to fetch her dinners ez ye do? Thar ez men ez does it; not yer in
+Californy, but over in the States thar's fellows is willing to take that
+situation. I've heard," continued Bill, in a low, mysterious voice,
+as of one describing the habits of the Anthropophagi--"I've heard o'
+fellows ez call themselves men, sellin' of themselves to rich women
+in that way. I've heard o' rich gals buyin' of men for their shape;
+sometimes--but thet's in furrin' kintries--for their pedigree! I've
+heard o' fellows bein' in that business, and callin' themselves men
+instead o' hosses! Ye ain't that kind o' man, Jeff. 'Tain't in yer
+blood. Yer father was a fool about women, and in course they ruined him,
+as they allus do the best men. It's on'y the fools and sneaks ez a woman
+ever makes anythin' out of. When ye hear of a man a woman hez made,
+ye hears of a nincompoop. And when they does produce 'em in the way
+o' nater, they ain't responsible for 'em, and sez they're the image o'
+their fathers! Ye ain't a man ez is goin' to trust yer fate to a woman!"
+
+"No," said Jeff darkly.
+
+"I reckoned not," said Bill, putting his hands in his pockets again. "Ye
+might if ye was one o' them kind o' fellows as kem up from 'Frisco with
+her to Sacramento. One o' them kind o' fellows ez could sling poetry and
+French and Latin to her--one of HER kind--but ye ain't! No, sir!"
+
+Unwise William of Yuba! In any other breast but Jeff's that random shot
+would have awakened the irregular auxiliary of love--jealousy! But Jeff,
+being at once proud and humble, had neither vanity nor conceit, without
+which jealousy is impossible. Yet he winced a little, for he had
+feeling, and then said earnestly:
+
+"Do you think that opening you spoke of would hold for a day or two
+longer?"
+
+"I reckon."
+
+"Well, then, I think I can settle up matters here my own way, and go
+with you, Bill."
+
+He had risen, and yet hesitatingly kept his hand on the back of his
+chair. "Bill!"
+
+"Jeff!"
+
+"I want to ask you a question; speak up, and don't mind me, but say the
+truth."
+
+Our crafty Ulysses, believing that he was about to be entrapped,
+ensconced himself in his pockets, cocked one eye, and said: "Go on,
+Jeff."
+
+"Was my father VERY bad?"
+
+Bill took his hands from his pockets. "Thar isn't a man ez crawls above
+his grave ez is worthy to lie in the same ground with him!"
+
+"Thank you, Bill. Good night; I'm going to turn in!"
+
+"Look yar, boy! G-d d--n it all, Jeff! what do ye mean?"
+
+There were two tears--twin sisters of those in his sweetheart's eyes
+that afternoon--now standing in Jeff's!
+
+Bill caught both his hands in his own. Had they been of the Latin race
+they would have, right honestly, taken each other in their arms, and
+perhaps kissed! Being Anglo-Saxons, they gripped each other's hands
+hard, and one, as above stated, swore!
+
+When Jeff ascended to his room that night he went directly to his trunk
+and took out Miss Mayfield's slipper. Alack! during the day Aunt Sally
+had "put things to rights" in his room, and the trunk had been moved.
+This had somewhat disordered its contents, and Miss Mayfield's slipper
+contained a dozen shot from a broken Eley's cartridge, a few quinine
+pills, four postage stamps, part of a coral earring which Jeff--on the
+most apocryphal authority--fondly believed belonged to his mother, whom
+he had never seen, and a small silver school medal which Jeff had once
+received for "good conduct," much to his own surprise, but which he
+still religiously kept as evidence of former conventional character. He
+colored a little, rubbed the medal and earring ruefully on his sleeve,
+replaced them in his trunk, and then hastily emptied the rest of the
+slipper's contents on the floor. This done, he drew off his boots, and,
+gliding noiselessly down the stair, hung the slipper on the knob of Miss
+Mayfield's door, and glided back again without detection.
+
+Rolling himself in his blankets, he lay down on his bed. But not to
+sleep! Staringly wide awake, he at last felt the lulling of the wind
+that nightly shook his casement, and listened while the great, rambling,
+creaking, disjointed "Half-way House" slowly settled itself to repose.
+He thought of many things; of himself, of his past, of his future, but
+chiefly, I fear, of the pale proud face now sleeping contentedly in the
+chamber below him. He tossed with many plans and projects, more or less
+impracticable, and then began to doze. Whereat the moon, creeping in
+the window, laid a cold white arm across him, and eventually dried a few
+foolish tears upon his sleeping lashes.
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Aunt Sally was making pies in the kitchen the next morning when Jeff
+hesitatingly stole upon her. The moment was not a felicitous one.
+Pie-making was usually an aggressive pursuit with Aunt Sally, entered
+into severely, and prosecuted unto the bitter end. After watching her a
+few moments Jeff came up and placed his arms tenderly around her. People
+very much in love find relief, I am told, in this vicarious expression.
+
+"Aunty."
+
+"Well, Jeff! Thar, now--yer gittin' all dough!" Nevertheless, the hard
+face relaxed a little. Something of a smile stole round her mouth,
+showing what she might have been before theology and bitters had
+supplied the natural feminine longings.
+
+"Aunty dear!"
+
+"You--boy!"
+
+It WAS a boy's face--albeit bearded like the pard, with an extra
+fierceness in the mustaches--that looked upon hers. She could not help
+bestowing a grim floury kiss upon it.
+
+"Well, what is it now?"
+
+"I'm thinking, aunty, it's high time you and me packed up our traps and
+'shook' this yar shanty, and located somewhere else." Jeff's voice was
+ostentatiously cheerful, but his eyes were a little anxious.
+
+"What for NOW?"
+
+Jeff hastily recounted his ill luck, and the various reasons--excepting
+of course the dominant one--for his resolution.
+
+"And when do you kalkilate to go?"
+
+"If you'll look arter things here," hesitated Jeff, "I reckon I'll go up
+along with Bill to-morrow, and look round a bit."
+
+"And how long do you reckon that gal would stay here after yar gone?"
+
+This was a new and startling idea to Jeff. But in his humility he saw
+nothing in it to flatter his conceit. Rather the reverse. He colored,
+and then said apologetically,--
+
+"I thought that you and Jinny could get along without me. The butcher
+will pack the provisions over from the Fork."
+
+Laying down her rolling-pin, Aunt Sally turned upon Jeff with
+ostentatious deliberation. "Ye ain't," she began slowly, "ez taking a
+man with wimmen ez your father was--that's a fact, Jeff Briggs! They
+used to say that no woman as he went for could get away from him. But
+ye don't mean to say yer think yer not good enough--such as ye are--for
+this snip of an old maid, ez big as a gold dollar, and as yaller?"
+
+"Aunty," said Jeff, dropping his boyish manner, and his color as
+suddenly, "I'd rather ye wouldn't talk that way of Miss Mayfield. Ye
+don't know her; and there's times," he added, with a sigh, "ez I reckon
+ye don't quite know ME either. That young lady, bein' sick, likes to be
+looked after. Any one can do that for her. She don't mind who it is. She
+don't care for me except for that, and," added Jeff humbly, "it's quite
+natural."
+
+"I didn't say she did," returned Aunt Sally viciously; "but seeing ez
+you've got an empty house yer on yer hands, and me a-slavin' here on
+jist nothin', if this gal, for the sake o' gallivantin' with ye for a
+spell, chooses to stay here and keep her family here, and pay high
+for it, I don't see why it ain't yer duty to Providence and me to take
+advantage of it."
+
+Jeff raised his eyes to his aunt's face. For the first time it struck
+him that she might be his father's sister and yet have no blood in her
+veins that answered to his. There are few shocks more startling and
+overpowering to original natures than this sudden sense of loneliness.
+Jeff could not speak, but remained looking fiercely at her.
+
+Aunt Sally misinterpreted his silence, and returned to her work on the
+pies. "The gal ain't no fool," she continued, rolling out the crust as
+if she were laying down broad propositions. "SHE reckons on it too, ez
+if it was charged in the bill with the board and lodging. Why, didn't
+she say to me, last night, that she kalkilated afore she went away to
+bring up some friends from 'Frisco for a few days' visit? and didn't she
+say, in that pipin', affected voice o' hers, 'I oughter make some return
+for yer kindness and yer nephew's kindness, Aunt Sally, by showing
+people that can help you, and keep your house full, how pleasant it is
+up here.' She ain't no fool, with all her faintin's and dyin's away! No,
+Jeff Briggs. And if she wants to show ye off agin them city fellows ez
+she knows, and ye ain't got spunk enough to stand up and show off with
+her--why"--she turned her head impatiently, but he was gone.
+
+If Jeff had ever wavered in his resolution he would have been steady
+enough NOW. But he had never wavered; the convictions and resolutions of
+suddenly awakened character are seldom moved by expediency. He was
+eager to taste the bitter dregs of his cup at once. He began to pack his
+trunk, and make his preparations for departure. Without avoiding Miss
+Mayfield in this new excitement, he no longer felt the need of her
+presence. He had satisfied his feverish anxieties by placing his trunk
+in the hall beside his open door, and was sitting on his bed, wrestling
+with a faded and overtasked carpet-bag that would not close and accept
+his hard conditions, when a small voice from the staircase thrilled
+him. He walked to the corridor, and, looking down, beheld Miss Mayfield
+midway on the steps of the staircase.
+
+She had never looked so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her in
+those soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalid
+femininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her present
+walking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment.
+There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the result
+of climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulse
+that had led her--a modest virgin--to seek a gentleman in this personal
+fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm,
+recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave or
+a worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts her
+charming little foot just over the threshold of Propriety.
+
+"The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed must come to the
+mountain," said Miss Mayfield. "Mother is asleep, Aunt Sally is at work
+in the kitchen, and here am I, already dressed for a ramble in this
+bright afternoon sunshine, and no one to go with me. But, perhaps, you,
+too, are busy?"
+
+"No, miss. I will be with you in a moment."
+
+I wish I could say that he went back to calm his pulses, which the
+dangerous music of Miss Mayfield's voice had set to throbbing, by a
+few moments' calm and dispassionate reflection. But he only returned to
+brush his curls out of his eyes and ears, and to button over his blue
+flannel shirt a white linen collar, which he thought might better
+harmonize with Miss Mayfield's attire.
+
+She was sitting on the staircase, poking her parasol through the
+balusters. "You need not have taken that trouble, Mr. Jeff," she said
+pleasantly. "YOU are a part of this mountain picture at all times; but I
+am obliged to think of dress."
+
+"It was no trouble, miss."
+
+Something in the tone of his voice made her look in his face as she
+rose. It was a trifle paler, and a little older. The result, doubtless,
+thought Miss Mayfield, of his yesterday's experience with the
+deputy-sheriff.
+
+Such was her rapid deduction. Nevertheless, after the fashion of her
+sex, she immediately began to argue from quite another hypothesis.
+
+"You are angry with me, Mr. Jeff."
+
+"What, I--Miss Mayfield?"
+
+"Yes, you!"
+
+"Miss Mayfield!"
+
+"Oh yes, you are. Don't deny it?"
+
+"Upon my soul--"
+
+"Yes! You give me punishments and--penances!"
+
+Jeff opened his blue eyes on his tormentor. Could Aunt Sally have been
+saying anything?
+
+"If anybody, Miss Mayfield--" he began.
+
+"Nobody but you. Look here!"
+
+She extended her little hand with a smile. In the centre of her palm lay
+four shining double B SHOT.
+
+"There! I found those in my slipper this morning!" Jeff was speechless.
+
+"Of course YOU did it! Of course it was YOU who found my slipper!" said
+Miss Mayfield, laughing. "But why did you put shot in it, Mr. Jeff? In
+some Catholic countries, when people have done wrong, the priests make
+them do penance by walking with peas in their shoes! What have I ever
+done to you? And why SHOT? They're ever so much harder than peas."
+
+Seeing only the mischievous, laughing face before him, and the open palm
+containing the damning evidence of the broken Eley's cartridge, Jeff
+stammered out the truth.
+
+"I found the slipper in the bear-skin, Miss Mayfield. I put it in my
+trunk to keep, thinking yer wouldn't miss it, and it's being a kind
+of remembrance after you're gone away--of--of the night you came here.
+Somebody moved the trunk in my room," and he hung his head here. "The
+things inside all got mixed up."
+
+"And that made you change your mind about keeping it?" said Miss
+Mayfield, still smiling.
+
+"No, miss."
+
+"What was it, then?"
+
+"I gave it back to you, Miss Mayfield, because I was going away."
+
+"Indeed! Where?"
+
+"I'm going to find another location. Maybe you've noticed," he
+continued, falling back into his old apologetic manner in spite of his
+pride of resolution--"maybe you've noticed that this place here has no
+advantages for a hotel."
+
+"I had not, indeed. I have been very comfortable."
+
+"Thank you, miss."
+
+"When do you go?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+For all his pride and fixed purpose he could not help looking eagerly in
+her face. Miss Mayfield's eyes met his pleasantly and quietly.
+
+"I'm sorry to part with you so soon," she said, as she stepped back a
+pace or two with folded hands. "Of course every moment of your time now
+is occupied. You must not think of wasting it on me."
+
+But Jeff had recovered his sad composure. "I'd like to go with you, Miss
+Mayfield. It's the last time, you know," he added simply.
+
+Miss Mayfield did not reply. It was a tacit assent, however, although
+she moved somewhat stiffly at his side as they walked towards the door.
+Quite convinced that Jeff's resolution came from his pecuniary troubles,
+Miss Mayfield was wondering if she had not better assure him of his
+security from further annoyance from Dodd. Wonderful complexity of
+female intellect! she was a little hurt at his ingratitude to her for
+a kindness he could not possibly have known. Miss Mayfield felt that
+in some way she was unjustly treated. How many of our miserable sex,
+incapable of divination, have been crushed under that unreasonable
+feminine reproof, "You ought to have known!"
+
+The afternoon sun was indeed shining brightly as they stepped out before
+the bleak angle of the "Half-way House"; but it failed to mitigate the
+habitually practical austerity of the mountain breeze--a fact which Miss
+Mayfield had never before noticed. The house was certainly bleak and
+exposed; the site by no means a poetical one. She wondered if she had
+not put a romance into it, and perhaps even into the man beside her,
+which did not belong to either. It was a moment of dangerous doubt.
+
+"I don't know but that you're right, Mr. Jeff," she said finally, as
+they faced the hill, and began the ascent together. "This place is a
+little queer, and bleak, and--unattractive."
+
+"Yes, miss," said Jeff, with direct simplicity, "I've always wondered
+what you saw in it to make you content to stay, when it would be so much
+prettier, and more suitable for you at the 'Summit.'"
+
+Miss Mayfield bit her lip, and was silent. After a few moments' climbing
+she said, almost pettishly, "Where is this famous 'Summit'?"
+
+Jeff stopped. They had reached the top of the hill. He pointed across
+an olive-green chasm to a higher level, where, basking in the declining
+sun, clustered the long rambling outbuildings around the white blinking
+facade of the "Summit House." Framed in pines and hemlocks, tender with
+soft gray shadows, and nestling beyond a foreground of cultivated slope,
+it was a charming rustic picture.
+
+Miss Mayfield's quick eye took in its details. Her quick intellect
+took in something else. She had seated herself on the road-bank, and,
+clasping her knees between her locked fingers, she suddenly looked up
+at Jeff. "What possessed you to come half-way up a mountain, instead of
+going on to the top?"
+
+"Poverty, miss!"
+
+Miss Mayfield flushed a little at this practical direct answer to
+her half-figurative question. However, she began to think that moral
+Alpine-climbing youth might have pecuniary restrictions in their high
+ambitions, and that the hero of "Excelsior" might have succumbed to
+more powerful opposition than the wisdom of Age or the blandishments of
+Beauty.
+
+"You mean that poverty up there is more expensive?"
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"But you would like to live there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They were both silent. Miss Mayfield glanced at Jeff under the corners
+of her lashes. He was leaning against a tree, absorbed in thought.
+Accustomed to look upon him as a pleasing picturesque object, quite
+fresh, original, and characteristic, she was somewhat disturbed to find
+that to-day he presented certain other qualities which clearly did not
+agree with her preconceived ideas of his condition. He had abandoned
+his usual large top-boots for low shoes, and she could not help noticing
+that his feet were small and slender as were his hands, albeit browned
+by exposure. His ruddy color was gone too, and his face, pale with
+sorrow and experience, had a new expression. His buttoned-up coat and
+white collar, so unlike his usual self, also had its suggestions--which
+Miss Mayfield was at first inclined to resent. Women are quick to notice
+and augur more or less wisely from these small details. Nevertheless,
+she began in quite another tone.
+
+"Do you remember your mother--MR.--MR.--BRIGGS?"
+
+Jeff noticed the new epithet. "No, miss; she died when I was quite
+young."
+
+"Your father, then?"
+
+Jeff's eye kindled a little, aggressively. "I remember HIM."
+
+"What was he?"
+
+"Miss Mayfield!"
+
+"What was his business or profession?"
+
+"He--hadn't--any!"
+
+"Oh, I see--a gentleman of property."
+
+Jeff hesitated, looked at Miss Mayfield hurriedly, colored, and did not
+reply.
+
+"And lost his property, Mr. Briggs?" With one of those rare impulses of
+an overtasked gentle nature, Jeff turned upon her almost savagely. "My
+father was a gambler, and shot himself at a gambling table."
+
+Miss Mayfield rose hurriedly. "I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Jeff."
+
+Jeff was silent.
+
+"You know--you MUST know--I did not mean--"
+
+No reply.
+
+"Mr. Jeff!"
+
+Her little hand fluttered toward him, and lit upon his sleeve, where it
+was suddenly captured and pressed passionately to his lips.
+
+"I did not mean to be thoughtless or unkind," said Miss Mayfield,
+discreetly keeping to the point, and trying weakly to disengage her
+hand. "You know I wouldn't hurt your feelings."
+
+"I know, Miss Mayfield." (Another kiss.)
+
+"I was ignorant of your history."
+
+"Yes, miss." (A kiss.)
+
+"And if I could do anything for you, Mr. Jeff--" She stopped.
+
+It was a very trying position. Being small, she was drawn after her hand
+quite up to Jeff's shoulder, while he, assenting in monosyllables, was
+parting the fingers, and kissing them separately. Reasonable discourse
+in this attitude was out of the question. She had recourse to strategy.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Miss Mayfield!"
+
+"You hurt my hand."
+
+Jeff dropped it instantly. Miss Mayfield put it in the pocket of her
+sacque for security. Besides, it had been so bekissed that it seemed
+unpleasantly conscious.
+
+"I wish you would tell me all about yourself," she went on, with a
+certain charming feminine submission of manner quite unlike her ordinary
+speech; "I should like to help you. Perhaps I can. You know I am quite
+independent; I mean--"
+
+She paused, for Jeff's face betrayed no signs of sympathetic following.
+
+"I mean I am what people call rich in my own right. I can do as I please
+with my own. If any of your trouble, Mr. Jeff, arises from want of
+money, or capital; if any consideration of that kind takes you away from
+your home; if I could save you THAT TROUBLE, and find for you--perhaps a
+little nearer--that which you are seeking, I would be so glad to do
+it. You will find the world very wide, and very cold, Mr. Jeff," she
+continued, with a certain air of practical superiority quite natural
+to her, but explicable to her friends and acquaintances only as the
+consciousness of pecuniary independence; "and I wish you would be frank
+with me. Although I am a woman, I know something of business."
+
+"I will be frank with you, miss," said Jeff, turning a colorless face
+upon her. "If you was ez rich as the Bank of California, and could throw
+your money on any fancy or whim that struck you at the moment; if you
+felt you could buy up any man and woman in California that was willing
+to be bought up; and if me and my aunt were starving in the road, we
+wouldn't touch the money that we hadn't earned fairly, and didn't belong
+to us. No, miss, I ain't that sort o' man!"
+
+How much of this speech, in its brusqueness and slang, was an echo
+of Yuba Bill's teaching, how much of it was a part of Jeff's inward
+weakness, I cannot say. He saw Miss Mayfield recoil from him. It added
+to his bitterness that his thought, for the first time voiced, appeared
+to him by no means as effective or powerful as he had imagined it would
+be, but he could not recede from it; and there was the relief that the
+worst had come, and was over now.
+
+Miss Mayfield took her hand out of her pocket. "I don't think you
+quite understand me, Mr. Jeff," she said quietly; "and I HOPE I don't
+understand you." She walked stiffly at his side for a few moments, but
+finally took the other side of the road. They had both turned, half
+unconsciously, back again to the "Half-way House."
+
+Jeff felt, like all quarrel-seekers, righteous or unrighteous, the full
+burden of the fight. If he could have relieved his mind, and at the
+next moment leaped upon Yuba Bill's coach, and so passed away--without a
+further word of explanation--all would have been well. But to walk back
+with this girl, whom he had just shaken off, and who must now thoroughly
+hate him, was something he had not preconceived, in that delightful
+forecast of the imagination, when we determine what WE shall say and
+do without the least consideration of what may be said or done to us in
+return. No quarrel proceeds exactly as we expect; people have such a
+way of behaving illogically! And here was Miss Mayfield, who was clearly
+derelict, and who should have acted under that conviction, walking along
+on the other side of the road, trailing the splendor of her parasol in
+the dust like an offended goddess.
+
+They had almost reached the house. "At what time do you go, Mr. Briggs?"
+asked the young lady quietly.
+
+"At eleven to-night, by the up stage."
+
+"I expect some friends by that stage--coming with my father."
+
+"My aunt will take good care of them," said Jeff, a little bitterly.
+
+"I have no doubt," responded Miss Mayfield gravely; "but I was not
+thinking of that. I had hoped to introduce them to you to-morrow. But
+I shall not be up so late to-night. And I had better say good-by to you
+now."
+
+She extended the unkissed hand. Jeff took it, but presently let the limp
+fingers fall through his own.
+
+"I wish you good fortune, Mr. Briggs."
+
+She made a grave little bow, and vanished into the house. But here,
+I regret to say, her lady-like calm also vanished. She upbraided her
+mother peevishly for obliging her to seek the escort of Mr. Briggs in
+her necessary exercise, and flung herself with an injured air upon the
+sofa.
+
+"But I thought you liked this Mr. Briggs. He seems an accommodating sort
+of person."
+
+"Very accommodating. Going away just as we are expecting company!"
+
+"Going away?" said Mrs. Mayfield in alarm. "Surely he must be told that
+we expect some preparation for our friends?"
+
+"Oh," said Miss Mayfield quickly, "his aunt will arrange THAT."
+
+Mrs. Mayfield, habitually mystified at her daughter's moods, said
+no more. She, however, fulfilled her duty conscientiously by rising,
+throwing a wrap over the young girl, tucking it in at her feet, and
+having, as it were, drawn a charitable veil over her peculiarities, left
+her alone.
+
+At half past ten the coach dashed up to the "Half-way House," with a
+flash of lights and a burst of cheery voices. Jeff, coming upon
+the porch, was met by Mr. Mayfield, accompanying a lady and two
+gentlemen,--evidently the guests alluded to by his daughter. Accustomed
+as Jeff had become to Mr. Mayfield's patronizing superiority, it seemed
+unbearable now, and the easy indifference of the guests to his own
+presence touched him with a new bitterness. Here were HER friends, who
+were to take his place. It was a relief to grasp Yuba Bill's large hand
+and stand with him alone beside the bar.
+
+"I'm ready to go with you to-night, Bill," said Jeff, after a pause.
+
+Bill put down his glass--a sign of absorbing interest.
+
+"And these yar strangers I fetched?"
+
+"Aunty will take care of them. I've fixed everything."
+
+Bill laid both his powerful hands on Jeff's shoulders, backed him
+against the wall, and surveyed him with great gravity.
+
+"Briggs's son clar through! A little off color, but the grit all thar!
+Bully for you, Jeff." He wrung Jeff's hand between his own.
+
+"Bill!" said Jeff hesitatingly.
+
+"Jeff!"
+
+"You wouldn't mind my getting up on the box NOW, before all the folks
+get round?"
+
+"I reckon not. Thar's the box-seat all ready for ye."
+
+Climbing to his high perch, Jeff, indistinguishable in the darkness,
+looked out upon the porch and the moving figures of the passengers, on
+Bill growling out his orders to his active hostler, and on the twinkling
+lights of the hotel windows. In the mystery of the night and the
+bitterness of his heart, everything looked strange. There was a light in
+Miss Mayfield's room, but the curtains were drawn. Once he thought they
+moved, but then, fearful of the fascination of watching them, he turned
+his face resolutely away.
+
+Then, to his relief, the hour came; the passengers re-entered the coach;
+Bill had mounted the box, and was slowly gathering his reins, when a
+shrill voice rose from the porch.
+
+"Oh, Jeff!"
+
+Jeff leaned an anxious face out over the coach lamps.
+
+It was Aunt Sally, breathless and on tiptoe, reaching with a letter.
+"Suthin' you forgot!" Then, in a hoarse stage whisper, perfectly audible
+to every one: "From HER!"
+
+Jeff seized the letter with a burning face. The whip snapped, and the
+stage plunged forward into the darkness. Presently Yuba Bill reached
+down, coolly detached one of the coach lamps, and handed it to Jeff
+without a word.
+
+Jeff tore open the envelope. It contained Cyrus Parker's bill receipted,
+and the writ. Another small inclosure contained ten dollars, and a few
+lines written in pencil in a large masculine business hand. By the light
+of the lamp Jeff read as follows:--
+
+
+"I hope you will forgive me for having tried to help you even in this
+accidental way, before I knew how strong were your objections to help
+from me. Nobody knows this but myself. Even Mr. Dodd thinks my father
+advanced the money. The ten dollars the rascal would have kept, but I
+made him disgorge it. I did it all while you were looking for the letter
+in the woods. Pray forget all about it, and any pain you may have had
+from J. M."
+
+
+Frank and practical as this letter appeared to be, and, doubtless, as
+it was intended to be by its writer, the reader will not fail to notice
+that Miss Mayfield said nothing of having overheard Jeff's quarrel with
+the deputy, and left him to infer that that functionary had betrayed
+him. It was simply one of those unpleasant details not affecting the
+result, usually overlooked in feminine ethics.
+
+For a moment Jeff sat pale and dumb, crushed under the ruins of his
+pride and self-love. For a moment he hated Miss Mayfield, small and
+triumphant! How she must have inwardly laughed at his speech that
+morning! With what refined cruelty she had saved this evidence of his
+humiliation, to work her vengeance on him now. He could not stand it!
+He could not live under it! He would go back and sell the house--his
+clothes--everything--to pay this wicked, heartless, cruel girl, that was
+killing--yes, killing--
+
+A strong hand took the swinging-lantern from his unsteady fingers, a
+strong hand possessed itself of the papers and Miss Mayfield's note, a
+strong arm was drawn around him,--for his figure was swaying to and fro,
+his head was giddy, and his hat had fallen off,--and a strong voice,
+albeit a little husky, whispered in his ear,--
+
+"Easy, boy! easy on the down grade. It'll be all one in a minit."
+
+Jeff tried to comprehend him, but his brain was whirling.
+
+"Pull yourself together, Jeff!" said Bill, after a pause. "Thar! Look
+yar!" he said suddenly. "Do you think you can drive SIX?"
+
+The words recalled Jeff to his senses. Bill laid the six reins in his
+hands. A sense of life, of activity, of POWER, came back to the young
+man, as his fingers closed deliciously on the far-reaching, thrilling,
+living leathern sinews that controlled the six horses, and seemed to
+be instinct and magnetic with their bounding life. Jeff, leaning back
+against them, felt the strong youthful tide rush back to his heart, and
+was himself again. Bill, meantime, took the lamp, examined the papers,
+and read Miss Mayfield's note. A grim smile stole over his face. After
+a pause, he said again, "Give Blue Grass her head, Jeff. D--n it, she
+ain't Miss Mayfield!"
+
+Jeff relaxed the muscles of his wrists, so as to throw the thumb and
+forefingers a trifle forward. This simple action relieved Blue Grass,
+alias Miss Mayfield, and made the coach steadier and less jerky.
+Wonderful co-relation of forces.
+
+"Thar!" said Yuba Bill, quietly putting the coach lamp back in its
+place; "you're better already. Thar's nothing like six horses to draw a
+woman out of a man. I've knowed a case where it took eight mustangs, but
+it was a mulatter from New Orleans, and they are pizen! Ye might hit
+up a little on the Pinto hoss--he ain't harmin' ye. So! Now, Jeff, take
+your time, and take it easy, and what's all this yer about?"
+
+To control six fiery mustangs, and at the same time give picturesque and
+affecting exposition of the subtle struggles of Love and Pride, was a
+performance beyond Jeff's powers. He had recourse to an angry staccato,
+which somehow seemed to him as ineffective as his previous discourse
+to Miss Mayfield; he was a little incoherent, and perhaps mixed his
+impressions with his facts, but he nevertheless managed to convey to
+Bill some general idea of the events of the past three days.
+
+"And she sent ye off after that letter, that wasn't thar, while she
+fixed things up with Dodd?"
+
+"Yes," said Jeff furiously.
+
+"Ye needn't bully the Pinto colt, Jeff; he is doin' his level best. And
+she snaked that ar ten dollars outer Dodd?"
+
+"Yes; and sent it back to ME. To ME, Bill! At such a time as this! As if
+I was dead broke!--a mere tramp. As if--"
+
+"In course! in course!" said Bill soothingly, yet turning his head aside
+to bestow a deceitful smile upon the trees that whirled beside them.
+"And ye told her ye didn't want her money?"
+
+"Yes, Bill--but it--it--it was AFTER she had done this!"
+
+"Surely! I'll take the lines now, Jeff."
+
+He took them. Jeff relapsed into gloomy silence. The starlight of that
+dewless Sierran night was bright and cold and passionless. There was no
+moon to lead the fancy astray with its faint mysteries and suggestions;
+nothing but a clear, grayish-blue twilight, with sharply silhouetted
+shadows, pointed here and there with bright large-spaced constant stars.
+The deep breath of the pine-woods, the faint, cool resinous spices of
+bay and laurel, at last brought surcease to his wounded spirit. The
+blessed weariness of exhausted youth stole tenderly on him. His head
+nodded, dropped. Yuba Bill, with a grim smile, drew him to his side,
+enveloped him in his blanket, and felt his head at last sink upon his
+own broad shoulder.
+
+A few minutes later the coach drew up at the "Summit House." Yuba Bill
+did not dismount, an unusual and disturbing circumstance that brought
+the bar-keeper to the veranda.
+
+"What's up, old man?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"Sworn off your reg'lar pizen?"
+
+"My physician," said Bill gravely, "hez ordered me dry champagne every
+three hours."
+
+Nevertheless, the bar-keeper lingered.
+
+"Who's that you're dry-nussin' up there?"
+
+I regret that I may not give Yuba Bill's literal reply. It suggested a
+form of inquiry at once distant, indirect, outrageous, and impossible.
+
+The bar-keeper flashed a lantern upon Jeff's curls and his drooping
+eyelashes and mustaches.
+
+"It's that son o' Briggs o' Tuolumne--pooty boy, ain't he?"
+
+Bill disdained a reply.
+
+"Played himself out down there, I reckon. Left his rifle here in pawn."
+
+"Young man," said Bill gravely.
+
+"Old man."
+
+"Ef you're looking for a safe investment ez will pay ye better than
+forty-rod whiskey at two bits a glass, jist you hang onter that ar
+rifle. It may make your fortin yet, or save ye from a drunkard's grave."
+With this ungracious pleasantry he hurried his dilatory passengers
+back into the coach, cracked his whip, and was again upon the road. The
+lights of the "Summit House" presently dropped here and there into the
+wasting shadows of the trees. Another stretch through the close-set
+ranks of pines, another dash through the opening, another whirl and
+rattle by overhanging rocks, and the vehicle was swiftly descending.
+Bill put his foot on the brake, threw his reins loosely on the necks of
+his cattle, and looked leisurely back. The great mountain was slowly and
+steadily rising between them and the valley they quitted.
+
+And at that same moment Miss Mayfield had crept from her bed, and, with
+a shawl around her pretty little figure, was pressing her eyes against a
+blank window of the "Half-way House," and wondering where HE was now.
+
+
+V.
+
+
+The "opening" suggested by Bill was not a fortunate one. Possibly views
+of business openings in the public-house line taken from the tops of
+stage-coaches are not as judicious as those taken from less exalted
+levels. Certain it is that the "goodwill" of the "Lone Star House"
+promised little more pecuniary value than a conventional blessing. It
+was in an older and more thickly settled locality than the "Half-way
+House;" indeed, it was but half a mile away from Campville, famous in
+'49--a place with a history and a disaster. But young communities are
+impatient of settlements that through any accident fail to fulfil the
+extravagant promise of their youth, and the wounded hamlet of Campville
+had crept into the woods and died. The "Lone Star House" was an attempt
+to woo the passing travelers from another point; but its road led to
+Campville, and was already touched by its dry-rot. Bill, who honestly
+conceived that the infusion of fresh young blood like Jeff's into the
+stagnant current would quicken it, had to confess his disappointment.
+"I thought ye could put some go into the shanty, Jeff," said Bill, "and
+make it lively and invitin'!" But the lack of vitality was not in the
+landlord, but in the guests. The regular customers were disappointed,
+vacant, hopeless men, who gathered listlessly on the veranda, and talked
+vaguely of the past. Their hollow-eyed, feeble impotency affected the
+stranger, even as it checked all ambition among themselves. Do what Jeff
+might, the habits of the locality were stronger than his individuality;
+the dead ghosts of the past Campville held their property by invisible
+mortmain.
+
+In the midst of this struggle the "Half-way House" was sold. Spite of
+Bill's prediction, the proceeds barely paid Jeff's debts. Aunt Sally
+prevented any troublesome consideration of HER future, by applying
+a small surplus of profit to the expenses of a journey back to her
+relatives in Kentucky. She wrote Jeff a letter of cheerless instruction,
+reminded him of the fulfillment of her worst prophecies regarding him,
+but begged him, in her absence, to rely solely upon the "Word." "For the
+sperrit killeth," she added vaguely. Whether this referred figuratively
+to Jeff's business, he did not stop to consider. He was more interested
+in the information that the Mayfields had removed to the "Summit Hotel"
+two days after he had left. "She allowed it was for her health's sake,"
+continued Aunt Sally, "but I reckon it's another name for one of them
+city fellers who j'ined their party and is keepin' company with her now.
+They talk o' property and stocks and sich worldly trifles all the time,
+and it's easy to see their idees is set together. It's allowed at the
+Forks that Mr. Mayfield paid Parker's bill for you. I said it wasn't so,
+fur ye'd hev told me; but if it is so, Jeff, and ye didn't tell me, it
+was for only one puppos, and that wos that Mayfield bribed ye to break
+off with his darter! That was WHY you went off so suddent, 'like a thief
+in the night,' and why Miss Mayfield never let on a word about you after
+you left--not even your name!"
+
+Jeff crushed the letter between his fingers, and, going behind the bar,
+poured out half a glass of stimulant and drank it. It was not the first
+time since he came to the "Lone Star House" that he had found this easy
+relief from his present thought; it was not the first time that he had
+found this dangerous ally of sure and swift service in bringing him up
+or down to that level of his dreary, sodden guests, so necessary to his
+trade. Jeff had not the excuse of the inborn drunkard's taste. He was
+impulsive and extreme. At the end of the four weeks he came out on
+the porch one night as Bill drew up. "You must take me from this place
+to-night," he said, in a broken voice scarce like his own. "When we're
+on the road we can arrange matters, but I must go to-night."
+
+"But where?" asked Bill.
+
+"Anywhere! Only I must go from here. I shall go if I have to walk."
+
+Bill looked hard at the young man. His face was flushed, his eyes
+blood-shot, and his hands trembled, not with excitement, but with a
+vacant, purposeless impotence. Bill looked a little relieved. "You've
+been drinking too hard. Jeff, I thought better of ye than that!"
+
+"I think better of MYSELF than that," said Jeff, with a certain wild,
+half-hysterical laugh, "and that is why I want to go. Don't be alarmed,
+Bill," he added; "I have strength enough to save myself, and I shall!
+But it isn't worth the struggle HERE."
+
+He left the "Lone Star House" that night. He would, he said to Bill, go
+on to Sacramento, and try to get a situation as clerk or porter there;
+he was too old to learn a trade. He said little more. When, after
+forty-eight hours' inability to eat, drink, or sleep, Bill, looking at
+his haggard face and staring eyes, pressed him to partake, medicinally,
+from a certain black bottle, Jeff gently put it aside, and saying, with
+a sad smile, "I can get along without it; I've gone through more than
+this," left his mentor in a state of mingled admiration and perplexity.
+
+At Sacramento he found a commercial "opening." But certain habits
+of personal independence, combined with a direct truthfulness and
+simplicity, were not conducive to business advancement. He was frank,
+and in his habits impulsive and selfishly outspoken. His employer,
+a good-natured man, successful in his way, anxious to serve his own
+interest and Jeff's equally, strove and labored with him, but in vain.
+His employer's wife, a still more good-natured woman, successful in her
+way, and equally anxious to serve Jeff's interests and her own, also
+strove with him as unsuccessfully. At the end of a month he discharged
+his employer, after a simple, boyish, utterly unbusiness-like interview,
+and secretly tore up his wife's letter. "I don't know what to make of
+that chap," said the husband to his wife; "he's about as civilized as an
+Injun." "And as conceited," added the lady.
+
+Howbeit he took his conceit, his sorrows, his curls, mustaches, broad
+shoulders, and fifty dollars into humble lodgings in a back street. The
+days succeeding this were the most restful he had passed since he left
+the "Half-way House." To wander through the town, half conscious of its
+strangeness and novel bustling life, and to dream of a higher and
+nobler future with Miss Mayfield--to feel no responsibility but that
+of waiting--was, I regret to say, a pleasure to him. He made no
+acquaintances except among the poorer people and the children. He was
+sometimes hungry, he was always poorly clad, but these facts carried
+no degradation with them now. He read much, and in his way--Jeff's
+way--tried to improve his mind; his recent commercial experience had
+shown him various infelicities in his speech and accent. He learned to
+correct certain provincialisms. He was conscious that Miss Mayfield
+must have noticed them, yet his odd irrational pride kept him from ever
+regretting them, if they had offered a possible excuse for her treatment
+of him.
+
+On one of these nights his steps chanced to lead him into a
+gambling-saloon. The place had offered no temptation to him; his
+dealings with the goddess Chance had been of less active nature.
+Nevertheless he placed his last five dollars on the turn of a card. He
+won. He won repeatedly; his gains had reached a considerable sum when,
+flushed, excited, and absorbed, he was suddenly conscious that he had
+become the centre of observation at the table. Looking up, he saw that
+the dealer had paused, and, with the cards in his motionless fingers,
+was gazing at him with fixed eyes and a white face.
+
+Jeff rose and passed hurriedly to his side. "What's the matter?"
+
+The gambler shrunk slightly as he approached. "What's your name?"
+
+"Briggs."
+
+"God! I knew it! How much have you got there?" he continued, in a quick
+whisper, pointing to Jeff's winnings.
+
+"Five hundred dollars."
+
+"I'll give you double if you'll get up and quit the board!"
+
+"Why?" asked Jeff haughtily.
+
+"Why?" repeated the man fiercely; "why? Well, your father shot himself
+thar, where you're sittin', at this table;" and he added, with a
+half-forced, half-hysterical laugh, "HE'S PLAYIN' AT ME OVER YOUR
+SHOULDERS!"
+
+Jeff lifted a face as colorless as the gambler's own, went back to his
+seat, and placed his entire gains on a single card. The gambler looked
+at him nervously, but dealt. There was a pause, a slight movement where
+Jeff stood, and then a simultaneous cry from the players as they turned
+towards him. But his seat was vacant. "Run after him! Call him back!
+HE'S WON AGAIN!" But he had vanished utterly.
+
+HOW he left, or what indeed followed, he never clearly remembered. His
+movements must have been automatic, for when, two hours later, he found
+himself at the "Pioneer" coach office, with his carpet-bag and blankets
+by his side, he could not recall how or why he had come! He had a dumb
+impression that he had barely escaped some dire calamity,--rather that
+he had only temporarily averted it,--and that he was still in the shadow
+of some impending catastrophe of destiny. He must go somewhere, he must
+do something to be saved! He had no money, he had no friends; even Yuba
+Bill had been transferred to another route, miles away. Yet, in
+the midst of this stupefaction, it was a part of his strange mental
+condition that trivial details of Miss Mayfield's face and figure,
+and even apparel, were constantly before him, to the exclusion of
+consecutive thought. A collar she used to wear, a ribbon she had once
+tied around her waist, a blue vein in her dropped eyelid, a curve in
+her soft, full, bird-like throat, the arch of her in-step in her small
+boots--all these were plainer to him than the future, or even the
+present. But a voice in his ear, a figure before his abstracted eyes, at
+last broke upon his reverie.
+
+"Jeff Briggs!"
+
+Jeff mechanically took the outstretched hand of a young clerk of the
+Pioneer Coach Company, who had once accompanied Yuba Bill and stopped at
+the "Half-way House." He endeavored to collect his thoughts; here seemed
+to be an opportunity to go somewhere!
+
+"What are you doing now?" said the young man briskly.
+
+"Nothing," said Jeff simply.
+
+"Oh, I see--going home!"
+
+Home! the word stung sharply through Jeff's benumbed consciousness.
+
+"No," he stammered, "that is--"
+
+"Look here, Jeff," broke in the young man, "I've got a chance for you
+that don't fall in a man's way every day. Wells, Fargo & Co.'s treasure
+messenger from Robinson's Ferry to Mempheys has slipped out. The place
+is vacant. I reckon I can get it for you."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now--to-night."
+
+"I'm ready."
+
+"Come, then."
+
+In ten minutes they were in the company's office, where its manager, a
+man famous in those days for his boldness and shrewdness, still lingered
+in the dispatch of business.
+
+The young clerk briefly but deferentially stated certain facts. A few
+questions and answers followed, of which Jeff heard only the words
+"Tuolumne" and "Yuba Bill."
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Briggs. Good-night, Roberts."
+
+The young clerk, with an encouraging smile at Jeff, bowed himself out as
+the manager seated himself at his desk and began to write.
+
+"You know the country pretty well between the Fork and the Summit, Mr.
+Briggs?" he said, without looking up.
+
+"I lived there," said Jeff.
+
+"That was some months ago, wasn't it?"
+
+"Six months," said Jeff, with a sigh.
+
+"It's changed for the worse since your house was shut up. There's a long
+stretch of unsettled country infested by bad characters."
+
+Jeff sat silent. "Briggs."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"The last man but one who preceded you was shot by road agents."*
+
+     * Highway robbers.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"We lost sixty thousand dollars up there."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Your father was Briggs of Tuolumne?"
+
+"Yes, sir." Jeff's head dropped, but, glancing shyly up, he saw a
+pleasant smile on his questioner's face. He was still writing rapidly,
+but was apparently enjoying at the same time some pleasant recollection.
+
+"Your father and I lost nearly sixty thousand dollars together one
+night, ten years ago, when we were both younger."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Jeff dubiously.
+
+"But it was OUR OWN MONEY, Jeff."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Here's your appointment," he said briefly, throwing away his pen,
+folding what he had written, and handing it to Jeff. It was the first
+time that he had looked at him since he entered. He now held out his
+hand, grasped Jeff's, and said, "Good-night!"
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+It was late the next evening when Jeff drew up at the coach office at
+Robinson's Ferry, where he was to await the coming of the Summit coach.
+His mind, lifted only temporarily out of its denumbed condition
+during his interview with the manager, again fell back into its dull
+abstraction. Fully embarked upon his dangerous journey, accepting all
+the meaning of the trust imposed upon him, he was yet vaguely conscious
+that he did not realize its full importance. He had neither the dread
+nor the stimulation of coming danger. He had faced death before in the
+boyish confidence of animal spirits; his pulse now was scarcely stirred
+with anticipation. Once or twice before, in the extravagance of his
+passion, he had imagined himself rescuing Miss Mayfield from danger,
+or even dying for her. During his journey his mind had dwelt fully
+and minutely on every detail of their brief acquaintance; she was
+continually before him, the tones of her voice were in his ears, the
+suggestive touch of her fingers, the thrill that his lips had felt when
+he kissed them--all were with him now, but only as a memory. In his
+coming fate, in his future life, he saw her not. He believed it was a
+premonition of coming death.
+
+He made a few preparations. The company's agent had told him that
+the treasure, letters, and dispatches, which had accumulated to a
+considerable amount, would be handed to him on the box; and that the
+arms and ammunition were in the boot. A less courageous and determined
+man might have been affected by the cold, practical brutality of certain
+advice and instructions offered him by the agent, but Jeff recognized
+this compliment to his determination, even before the agent concluded
+his speech by saying, "But I reckon they knew what they were about
+in the lower office when they sent YOU up. I dare say you kin give me
+p'ints, ef ye cared to, for all ye're soft spoken. There are only four
+passengers booked through; we hev to be a little partikler, suspectin'
+spies! Two of the four ye kin depend upon to get the top o' their d----d
+heads blowed off the first fire," he added grimly.
+
+At ten o'clock the Summit coach flashed, rattled, glittered, and
+snapped, like a disorganized firework, up to the door of the company's
+office. A familiar figure, but more than usually truculent and
+aggressive, slowly descended with violent oaths from the box. Without
+seeing Jeff, it strode into the office.
+
+"Now then," said Yuba Bill, addressing the agent, "whar's that
+God-forsaken fool that Wells, Fargo & Co. hev sent up yar to take charge
+o' their treasure? Because I'd like to introduce him to the champion
+idgit of Calaveras County, that's been selected to go to h-ll with him;
+and that's me, Yuba Bill! P'int him out. Don't keep me waitin'!"
+
+The agent grinned and pointed to Jeff.
+
+Both men recoiled in astonishment. Yuba Bill was the first to recover
+his speech.
+
+"It's a lie!" he roared; "or somebody has been putting up a job on
+ye, Jeff! Because I've been twenty years in the service, and am such a
+nat'ral born mule that when the company strokes my back and sez, 'You're
+the on'y mule we kin trust, Bill,' I starts up and goes out as a blasted
+wooden figgerhead for road agents to lay fur and practice on, it don't
+follow that YOU'VE any call to go."
+
+"It was my own seeking, Bill," said Jeff, with one of his old, sweet,
+boyish smiles. "I didn't know YOU were to drive. But you're not going
+back on me now, Bill, are you? you're not going to send me off with
+another volunteer?"
+
+"That be d----d!" growled Bill. Nevertheless, for ten minutes he reviled
+the Pioneer Coach Company with picturesque imprecation, tendered his
+resignation repeatedly to the agent, and at the end of that time, as
+everybody expected, mounted the box, and with a final malediction,
+involving the whole settlement, was off.
+
+On the road, Jeff, in a few hurried sentences, told his story. Bill
+scarcely seemed to listen. "Look yar, Jeff," he said suddenly.
+
+"Yes, Bill."
+
+"If the worst happens, and ye go under, you'll tell your father, IF I
+DON'T HAPPEN TO SEE HIM FIRST, it wasn't no job of mine, and I did my
+best to get ye out of it."
+
+"Yes," said Jeff, in a faint voice.
+
+"It mayn't be so bad," said Bill, softening; "they KNOW, d--n 'em, we've
+got a pile aboard, ez well as if they seed that agent gin it ye, but
+they also know we've pre-pared!"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of that, Bill; I was thinking of my father." And he
+told Bill of the gambling episode at Sacramento.
+
+"D'ye mean to say ye left them hounds with a thousand dollars of yer
+hard-earned--"
+
+"Gambling gains, Bill," interrupted Jeff quietly.
+
+"Exactly! Well!" Bill subsided into an incoherent growl. After a few
+moments' pause, he began again. "Yer ready as ye used to be with
+a six-shooter, Jeff, time's when ye was a boy, and I uster chuck
+half-dollars in the air fur ye to make warts on?"
+
+"I reckon," said Jeff, with a faint smile.
+
+"Thar's two p'ints on the road to be looked to: the woods beyond the
+blacksmith's shop that uster be; the fringe of alder and buckeye by the
+crossing below your house--p'ints where they kin fetch you without a
+show. Thar's two ways o' meetin' them thar. One way ez to pull up and
+trust to luck and brag. The other way is to whip up and yell, and send
+the whole six kiting by like h-ll!"
+
+"Yes," said Jeff.
+
+"The only drawback to that plan is this: the road lies along the edge
+of a precipice, straight down a thousand feet into the river. Ef these
+devils get a shot into any one o' the six and it DROPS, the coach turns
+sharp off, and down we go, the whole kerboodle of us, plump into the
+Stanislaus!"
+
+"AND THEY DON'T GET THE MONEY," said Jeff quietly.
+
+"Well, no!" replied Yuba Bill, staring at Jeff, whose face was set as a
+flint against the darkness. "I should reckon not." He then drew a long
+breath, glanced at Jeff again, and said between his teeth, "Well, I'm
+d----d!"
+
+At the next station they changed horses, Bill personally supervising,
+especially as regarded the welfare and proper condition of Blue Grass,
+who here was brought out as a leader. Formerly there was no change of
+horses at this station, and this novelty excited Jeff's remark. "These
+yar chaps say thar's no station at the Summit now," growled Bill, in
+explanation; "the hotel is closed, and it's all private property, bought
+by some chap from 'Frisco. Thar ought to be a law agin such doin's!"
+
+This suggested obliteration of the last traces of Miss Mayfield seemed
+to Jeff as only a corroboration of his premonition. He should never hear
+from her again! Yet to have stood under the roof that last sheltered
+her; to, perchance, have met some one who had seen her later--this was a
+fancy that had haunted him on his journey. It was all over now. Perhaps
+it was for the best.
+
+With the sinking behind of the lights of the station, the occupants of
+the coach knew that the dangerous part of the journey had begun. The two
+guards in the coach had already made obtrusive and warlike preparations,
+to the ill-concealed disgust of Yuba Bill. "I'd hev been willin' to get
+through this yar job without the burnin' of powder, but ef any of them
+devils ez is waitin' for us would be content with a shot at them fancy
+policemen inside, I'd pull up and give 'em a show!" Having relieved his
+mind, Bill said no more, and the two men relapsed into silence. The moon
+shone brightly and peacefully, a fact pointed out by Bill as unfavorably
+deepening the shadows of the woods, and bringing the coach and the road
+into greater relief.
+
+An hour passed. What were Yuba Bill's thoughts are not a part of this
+history; that they were turbulent and aggressive might be inferred from
+the occasional growls and interjected oaths that broke from his lips.
+But Jeff, strange anomaly, due perhaps to youth and moonlight, was
+wrapped in a sensuous dream of Miss Mayfield, of the scent of her dark
+hair as he had drawn her to his side, of the outlines of her sweet form,
+that had for a moment lightly touched his own--of anything, I fear, but
+the death he believed he was hastening to. But--
+
+"Jeff," said Bill, in an unmistakable tone.
+
+"Yes," said Jeff.
+
+"THAT AR CLUMP O' BUCKEYE ON THE RIDGE! Ready there!" (Leaning over the
+box, to the guards within.) A responsive rustle in the coach, which now
+bounded forward as if instinct with life and intelligence.
+
+"Jeff," said Bill, in an odd, altered voice, "take the lines a minit."
+Jeff took them. Bill stooped towards the boot. A peaceful moment! A
+peaceful outlook from the coach; the white moonlit road stretching to
+the ridge, no noise but the steady gallop of the horses!
+
+Then a yellow flash, breaking from the darkness of the buckeye; a crack
+like the snap of a whip; Yuba Bill steadying himself for a moment, and
+then dropping at Jeff's feet!
+
+"They got me, Jeff! But--I DRAWED THEIR FIRE! Don't drop the lines!
+Don't speak! For--they--think I'm YOU and you ME!"
+
+The flash had illuminated Jeff as to the danger, as to Bill's sacrifice,
+but above all, and overwhelming all, to a thrilling sense of his own
+power and ability.
+
+Yet he sat like a statue. Six masked figures had appeared from the very
+ground, clinging to the bits of the horses. The coach stopped. Two wild
+purposeless shots--the first and last fired by the guards--were answered
+by the muzzle of six rifles pointed into the windows, and the passengers
+foolishly and impotently filed out into the road.
+
+"Now, Bill," said a voice, which Jeff instantly recognized as the
+blacksmith's, "we won't keep ye long. So hand down the treasure."
+
+The man's foot was on the wheel; in another instant he would be beside
+Jeff, and discovery was certain. Jeff leaned over and unhooked the coach
+lamp, as if to assist him with its light. As if in turning, he STUMBLED,
+broke the lamp, ignited the kerosene, and scattered the wick and blazing
+fluid over the haunches of the wheelers! The maddened animals gave one
+wild plunge forwards, the coach followed twice its length, throwing the
+blacksmith under its wheels, and driving the other horses towards the
+bank. But as the lamp broke in Jeff's right hand, his practiced left
+hand discharged its hidden Derringer at the head of the robber who had
+held the bit of Blue Grass, and, throwing the useless weapon away, he
+laid the whip smartly on her back. She leaped forward madly, dragging
+the other leaders with her, and in the next moment they were free and
+wildly careering down the grade.
+
+A dozen shots followed them. The men were protected by the coach, but
+Yuba Bill groaned.
+
+"Are you hit again?" asked Jeff hastily. He had forgotten his saviour.
+
+"No; but the horses are! I felt 'em! Look at 'em, Jeff."
+
+Jeff had gathered up the almost useless reins. The horses were running
+away; but Blue Grass was limping.
+
+"For God's sake," said Bill, desperately dragging his wounded figure
+above the dash-board, "keep her up! LIFT HER UP, Jeff, till we pass the
+curve. Don't let her drop, or we're--"
+
+"Can you hold the reins?" said Jeff quickly.
+
+"Give 'em here!"
+
+Jeff passed them to the wounded man. Then, with his bowie-knife between
+his teeth, he leaped over the dash-board on the backs of the wheelers.
+He extinguished the blazing drops that the wind had not blown out of
+their smarting haunches, and with the skill and instinct of a Mexican
+vaquero, made his way over their turbulent tossing backs to Blue Grass,
+cut her traces and reins, and as the vehicle neared the curve, with
+a sharp lash, drove her to the bank, where she sank even as the coach
+darted by. Bill uttered a feeble "Hurrah!" but at the same moment the
+reins dropped from his fingers, and he sank at the bottom of the boot.
+
+Riding postilion-wise, Jeff could control the horses. The dangerous
+curve was passed, but not the possibility of pursuit. The single leader
+he was bestriding was panting--more than that, he was SWEATING, and from
+the evidence of Jeff's hands, sweating BLOOD! Back of his shoulder was a
+jagged hole, from which his life-blood was welling. The off-wheel horse
+was limping too. That last volley was no foolish outburst of useless
+rage, but was deliberate and premeditated skill. Jeff drew the reins,
+and as the coach stopped, the horse he was riding fell dead. Into the
+silence that followed broke the measured beat of horses' hoofs on the
+road above. He was pursued!
+
+To select the best horse of the remaining unscathed three, to break open
+the boot and place the treasure on his back, and to abandon and leave
+the senseless Bill lying there, was the unhesitating work of a moment.
+Great heroes and great lovers are invariably one-ideaed men, and Jeff
+was at that moment both.
+
+Eighty thousand dollars in gold-dust and Jeff's weight was a handicap.
+Nevertheless he flew forward like the wind. Presently he fell to
+listening. A certain hoof-beat in the rear was growing more distinct. A
+bitter thought flashed through his mind. He looked back. Over the hill
+appeared the foremost of his pursuers. It was the blacksmith, mounted on
+the fleetest horse in the county--Jeff's OWN horse--Rabbit!
+
+But there are compensations in all new trials. As Jeff faced round
+again, he saw he had reached the open table-land, and the bleak walls
+and ghastly, untenanted windows of the "Half-way House" rose before him
+in the distance. Jeff was master of the ground here! He was entering the
+shadow of the woods--Miss Mayfield's woods! and there was a cut off from
+the road, and a bridle-path, known only to himself, hard by. To find it,
+leap the roadside ditch, dash through the thicket, and rein up by the
+road again, was swiftly done.
+
+Take a gentle woman, betray her trust, outrage her best feelings, drive
+her into a corner, and you have a fury! Take a gentle, trustful man,
+abuse him, show him the folly of this gentleness and kindness, prove to
+him that it is weakness, drive him into a corner, and you have a savage!
+And it was this savage, with an Indian's memory, and an Indian's eye and
+ear, that suddenly confronted the blacksmith.
+
+What more! A single shot from a trained hand and one-ideaed intellect
+settled the blacksmith's business, and temporarily ended this Iliad! I
+say temporarily, for Mr. Dodd, formerly deputy-sheriff, prudently pulled
+up at the top of the hill, and observing his principal bend his head
+forwards and act like a drunken man, until he reeled, limp and sideways,
+from the saddle, and noticing further that Jeff took his place with a
+well-filled saddle-bag, concluded to follow cautiously and unobtrusively
+in the rear.
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+But Jeff saw him not. With mind and will bent on one object--to reach
+the first habitation, the "Summit," and send back help and assistance to
+his wounded comrade--he urged Rabbit forward. The mare knew her rider,
+but he had no time for caresses. Through the smarting of his hands he
+had only just noticed that they were badly burned, and the skin was
+peeling from them; he had confounded the blood that was flowing from a
+cut on his scalp, with that from the wounded horse. It was one hour yet
+to the "Summit," but the road was good, the moon was bright, he knew
+what Rabbit could do, and it was not yet ten o'clock.
+
+As the white outbuildings and irregular outlines of the "Summit House"
+began to be visible, Jeff felt a singular return of his former dreamy
+abstraction. The hour of peril, anger, and excitement he had just passed
+through seemed something of years ago, or rather to be obliterated with
+all else that had passed since he had looked upon that scene. Yet it
+was all changed--strangely changed! What Jeff had taken for the white,
+wooden barns and outhouses were greenhouses and conservatories. The
+"Summit Hotel" was a picturesque villa, nestling in the self-same
+trees, but approached through cultivated fields, dwellings of laborers,
+parklike gates and walls, and all the bountiful appointments of wealth
+and security. Jeff thought of Yuba Bill's malediction, and understood it
+as he gazed.
+
+The barking of dogs announced his near approach to the principal
+entrance. Lights were still burning in the upper windows of the house
+and its offices. He was at once surrounded by the strange medley of
+a Californian ranchero's service, peons, Chinese, and vaqueros. Jeff
+briefly stated his business. "Ah, Carrajo!" This was a matter for the
+major-domo, or, better, the padrone--Wilson! But the padrone, Wilson,
+called out by the tumult, appeared in person--a handsome, resolute,
+middle-aged man, who, in a twinkling, dispersed the group to barn and
+stable with a dozen orders of preparation, and then turned to Jeff.
+
+"You are hurt; come in."
+
+Jeff followed him dazedly into the house. The same sense of remote
+abstraction, of vague dreaminess, was overcoming him. He resented it,
+and fought against it, but in vain; he was only half conscious that his
+host had bathed his head and given him some slight restorative, had said
+something to him soothingly, and had left him. Jeff wondered if he had
+fainted, or was about to faint,--he had a nervous dread of that womanish
+weakness,--or if he were really hurt worse than he believed. He tried to
+master himself and grasp the situation by minutely examining the room.
+It was luxuriously furnished; Jeff had but once before sat in such an
+arm-chair as the one that half embraced him, and as a boy he had dim
+recollections of a life like this, of which his father was part. To
+poor Jeff, with his throbbing head, his smarting hands, and his lapsing
+moments of half forgetfulness, this seemed to be a return of his old
+premonition. There was a vague perfume in the room, like that which he
+remembered when he was in the woods with Miss Mayfield. He believed he
+was growing faint again, and was about to rise, when the door opened
+behind him.
+
+"Is there anything we can do for you? Mr. Wilson has gone to seek your
+friend, and has sent Manuel for a doctor."
+
+HER voice! He rose hurriedly, turned; SHE was standing in the doorway!
+
+She uttered a slight cry, turned very pale, advanced towards him,
+stopped and leaned against the chimney-piece.
+
+"I didn't know it was YOU."
+
+With her actual presence Jeff's dream and weakness fled. He rose up
+before her, his old bashful, stammering, awkward self.
+
+"I didn't know YOU lived here, Miss Mayfield."
+
+"If you had sent word you were coming," said Miss Mayfield, recovering
+her color brightly in one cheek.
+
+The possibility of having sent a messenger in advance to advise Miss
+Mayfield of his projected visit did not strike Jeff as ridiculous.
+Your true lover is far beyond such trivialities. He accepted the rebuke
+meekly. He said he was sorry.
+
+"You might have known it."
+
+"What, Miss Mayfield?"
+
+"That I was here, if you WISHED to know."
+
+Jeff did not reply. He bowed his head and clasped his burned hands
+together. Miss Mayfield saw their raw surfaces, saw the ugly cut on his
+head, pitied him, but went on hastily, with both cheeks burning, to say,
+womanlike, what was then deepest in her heart:
+
+"My brother-in-law told me your adventure; but I did not know until I
+entered this room that the gentleman I wished to help was one who had
+once rejected my assistance, who had misunderstood me, and cruelly
+insulted me! Oh, forgive me, Mr. Briggs" (Jeff had risen). "I did not
+mean THAT. But, Mr. Jeff--Jeff--oh!" (She had caught his tortured hand
+and had wrung a movement of pain from him.) "Oh, dear! what did I do
+now? But Mr. Jeff, after what has passed, after what you said to me when
+you went away, when you were at that dreadful place, Campville, when you
+were two months in Sacramento, you might--YOU OUGHT TO HAVE LET ME KNOW
+IT!"
+
+Jeff turned. Her face, more beautiful than he had ever seen it, alive
+and eloquent with every thought that her woman's speech but half
+expressed, was very near his--so near, that under her honest eyes the
+wretched scales fell from his own, his self-wrought shackles crumbled
+away, and he dropped upon his knees at her feet as she sank into the
+chair he had quitted. Both his hands were grasped in her own.
+
+"YOU went away, and I STAYED," she said reflectively.
+
+"I had no home, Miss Mayfield."
+
+"Nor had I. I had to buy this," she said, with a delicious simplicity;
+"and bring a family here too," she added, "in case YOU"--she stopped,
+with a slight color.
+
+"Forgive me," said Jeff, burying his face in her hands.
+
+"Jeff."
+
+"Jessie."
+
+"Don't you think you were a LITTLE--just a little--mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Miss Mayfield uttered a faint sigh. He looked into her anxious cheeks
+and eyes, his arm stole round her; their lips met for the first time in
+one long lingering kiss. Then, I fear, for the second time.
+
+"Jeff," said Miss Mayfield, suddenly becoming practical and sweetly
+possessory, "you must have your hands bound up in cotton."
+
+"Yes," said Jeff cheerfully.
+
+"And you must go instantly to bed."
+
+Jeff stared.
+
+"Because my sister will think it very late for me to be sitting up with
+a gentleman."
+
+The idea that Miss Mayfield was responsible to anybody was something new
+to Jeff. But he said hastily, "I must stay and wait for Bill. He risked
+his life for me."
+
+"Oh, yes! You must tell me all about it. I may wait for THAT!"
+
+Jeff possessed himself of the chair; in some way he also possessed
+himself of Miss Mayfield without entirely dispossessing her. Then he
+told his story. He hesitated over the episode of the blacksmith. "I'm
+afraid I killed him, Jessie."
+
+Miss Mayfield betrayed little concern at this possible extreme measure
+with a dangerous neighbor. "He cut your head, Jeff," she said, passing
+her little hand through his curls.
+
+"No," said Jeff hastily, "that must have been done BEFORE."
+
+"Well," said Miss Mayfield conclusively, "he would if he'd dared. And
+you brought off that wretched money in spite of him. Poor dear Jeff."
+
+"Yes," said Jeff, kissing her.
+
+"Where is it?" asked Jessie, looking round the room.
+
+"Oh, just out there!"
+
+"Out where?"
+
+"On my horse, you know, outside the door," continued Jeff, a little
+uneasily, as he rose. "I'll go and--"
+
+"You careless boy," said Miss Mayfield, jumping up, "I'll go with you."
+
+They passed out on the porch together, holding each other's hands, like
+children. The forgotten Rabbit was not there. Miss Mayfield called a
+vaquero.
+
+"Ah, yes!--the caballero's horse. Of a certainty the other caballero had
+taken it!"
+
+"The other caballero!" gasped Jeff.
+
+"Si, senor. The one who arrived with you, or a moment, the very next
+moment, after you. 'Your friend,' he said."
+
+Jeff staggered against the porch, and cast one despairing reproachful
+look at Miss Mayfield.
+
+"Oh, Jeff! Jeff! don't look so. I know I ought not to have kept you!
+It's a mistake, Jeff, believe me."
+
+"It's no mistake," said Jeff hoarsely. "Go!" he said, turning to
+the vaquero, "go!--bring--" But his speech failed. He attempted to
+gesticulate with his hands, ran forward a few steps, staggered, and fell
+fainting on the ground.
+
+"Help me with the caballero into the blue room," said Miss Mayfield,
+white as Jeff. "And hark ye, Manuel! You know every ruffian, man or
+woman, on this road. That horse and those saddle-bags must be here
+to-morrow, if you have to pay DOUBLE WHAT THEY'RE WORTH!"
+
+"Si, senora."
+
+Jeff went off into fever, into delirium, into helpless stupor. From
+time to time he moaned "Bill" and "the treasure." On the third day, in a
+lucid interval, as he lay staring at the wall, Miss Mayfield put in
+his hand a letter from the company, acknowledging the receipt of the
+treasure, thanking him for his zeal, and inclosing a handsome check.
+
+Jeff sat up, and put his hands to his head.
+
+"I told you it was taken by mistake, and was easily found," said Miss
+Mayfield, "didn't I?"
+
+"Yes,--and Bill?"
+
+"You know he is so much better that he expects to leave us next week."
+
+"And--Jessie!"
+
+"There--go to sleep!"
+
+At the end of a week she introduced Jeff to her sister-in-law, having
+previously run her fingers through his hair to insure that becomingness
+to his curls which would better indicate his moral character; and spoke
+of him as one of her oldest Californian friends.
+
+At the end of two weeks she again presented him as her affianced
+husband--a long engagement of a year being just passed. Mr. Wilson, who
+was bored by the mountain life, undertaken to please his rich wife and
+richer sister, saw a chance of escape here, and bore willing testimony
+to the distant Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield of the excellence of Miss Jessie's
+choice. And Yuba Bill was Jeff's best man.
+
+The name of Briggs remained a power in Tuolumne and Calaveras
+County. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs never had but one word of disagreement or
+discussion. One day, Jeff, looking over some old accounts of his wife's,
+found an unreceipted, unvouched for expenditure of twenty thousand
+dollars. "What is this for, Jessie?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, it's all right, Jeff!"
+
+But here the now business-like and practical Mr. Briggs, father of a
+family, felt called upon to make some general remarks regarding the
+necessity of exactitude in accounts, etc.
+
+"But I'd rather not tell you, Jeff."
+
+"But you ought to, Jessie."
+
+"Well then, dear, it was to get those saddle-bags of yours from that
+rascal, Dodd," said little Mrs. Briggs meekly.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jeff Briggs's Love Story, by Bret Harte
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