infection of her presence. A smile was the only tribute she exacted,
and good-humor the rule laid down for her guests. If it occasionally
required some mental agility to respond to her banter, a Californian
gathering was, however, seldom lacking in humor. Yet she was always the
principal performer to an admiring audience. Perhaps there was security
in this multitude of admirers; perhaps there was a saving grace in this
humorous trifling. The passions are apt to be serious and solitary, and
Jovita evaded them with a jest,--which, if not always delicate or witty,
was effective in securing the laughter of the majority and the jealousy
of none.

At the end of the week another peculiarity was noticed. There was a
perceptible increase of the Mexican population, who had always hitherto
avoided Buckeye. On Sunday an Irish priest from El Pasto said mass in a
patched-up corner of the old Mission ruin opposite Rollinson's Ford. A
few lounging "Excelsior" boys were equally astonished to see Jovita's
red rose crest and black mantilla glide by, and followed her unvarying
smile and jesting salutation up to the shadow of the crumbling portal.
At vespers nearly all Buckeye, hitherto virtuously skeptical and
good-humoredly secure in Works without Faith, made a point of attending;
it was alleged by some to see if Jovita's glossy Indian-inky eyes would
suffer aberration in her devotions. But the rose-crested head was never
lifted from the well-worn prayer-book or the brown hands which held
a certain poor little cheap rosary like a child's string of battered
copper coins. Buckeye lounged by the wall through the service with
respectful tolerance and uneasy shifting legs, and came away. But the
apparently simple event did not end there. It was unconsciously charged
with a tremendous import to the settlement. For it was discovered the
next day by Mrs. "Bob" Carpenter and Nan Shuttleworth that the Methodist
Church at Fiddletown was too far away, and Buckeye ought to have a
preacher of its own. Seats were fitted up in the loft of Carpenter's
store-house, where the Reverend Henry McCorkle held divine service,
and instituted a Bible class. At the end of two weeks it appeared
that Jovita's invasion--which was to bring dissipation and ruin to
Buckeye--had indirectly brought two churches! A chilling doubt like a
cold mist settled along the river. As the two rival processions passed
on the third Sunday, Jo Bateman, who had been in the habit of reclining
on that day in his shirtsleeves under a tree, with a novel in his hand,
looked gloomily after them. Then knocking the ashes from his pipe, he
rose, shook hands with his partners, said apologetically that he had
lately got into the habit of RESPECTING THE SABBATH, and was too old
to change again, and so shook the red dust of Buckeye from his feet and
departed.

As yet there had not been the slightest evidence of disorderly conduct
on the part of the fair proprietress of the tienda, nor her customers,
nor any drunkenness or riotous disturbance that could be at all
attributed to her presence. There was, it is true, considerable
hilarity, smoking, and some gambling there until a late hour, but
this could not be said to interfere with the rest and comfort of other
people. A clue to the mystery of so extraordinary a propriety was given
by Jovita herself. One day she walked into Parks' Emporium and demanded
an interview with the proprietor.

"You have made the rules for thees Booki?"

"Yes--that is--I and my friends have."

"And when one shall not have mind the rule--when one have say, 'No! damn
the rule,' what shall you make to him? Shall you aprison him?"

Mr. Parks hastened to say with a superior, yet engaging smile that it
never had been necessary, as the rules were obligatory upon the honor
and consent of all--and were never broken. "Except," he added, still
more engagingly, "she would remember, in her case--with their consent."

"And your caballeros break not the rules?"

"No."

"Then they shall not break the rules of me--at MY TIENDA! Look! I have
made the rule that I shall not have a caballero drunk at my house; I
have made the rule that I shall not sell him the aguardiente when he
have too mooch. I have made the rule that when he gamble too mooch, when
he put up too mooch money, I say 'No!' I will not that he shall! I make
one more rule: that he shall not quarrel nor fight in my house. When he
quarrel and fight, I say 'Go! Vamos! Get out!'"

"And very good rules they are too, Miss Mendez."

Jovita fixed her shining black eyes on the smiling Parks. "And when he
say, 'No, nevarre, damn the rules!' When he come drunk, remain drunk,
play high and fight, YOU will not poonish him? YOU will not take him
out?"

"Well, you see, the fact is, I have not the power."

"Are you not the Alcalde?"

"No. There is a Justice of the Peace at Fiddletown, but even he could
do nothing to enforce your rules. But if anything should happen, you can
make a complaint to him."

"Bueno. You have not the power; I have. I make not the complaint to
Fiddletown. I make the complaint to Jose Perez, to Manuel, to Antonio,
to Sanchicha--she is a strong one! I say 'Chook him out.' They chook him
out! they remove him! He does not r-r-remain. Enough. Bueno. Gracias,
senor, good-a-by!"

She was gone. For the next four days Parks was in a state of some
anxiety--but it appeared unnecessarily so. Whether the interview had
become known along the river did not transpire, but there seemed to be
no reason for Miss Mendez to enforce her rules. It was said that once,
when Thompson of Angels was a little too noisy, he had been quietly
conducted by his friends from the tienda without the intervention of
Jose. The frequenters of the saloon became its police.

Yet the event--long protracted--came at last! It was a dry, feverish,
breezeless afternoon, when the short, echoless explosion of a revolver
puffed out on the river, followed by another, delivered so rapidly that
they seemed rolled into one. There was no mistaking that significant
repetition. ONE shot might have been an accident; TWO meant intention.
The men dropped their picks and shovels and ran--ran as they never
before ran in Buckeye--ran mechanically, blindly groping at their belts
and pockets for the weapons that hung there no longer; ran aimlessly,
as to purpose, but following instinctively with hurried breath and
quivering nostrils the cruel scent of powder and blood. Ran
until, reaching the tienda, the foremost stumbled over the body of
Shuttleworth; came upon the half-sitting, half-leaning figure of
Saunders against its adobe wall! The doors were barred and closed, and
even as the crowd charged furiously forward, a window was sharply shut
above, in their very face.

"Stand back, gentlemen! Lift him up. What's the row? What is it,
Saunders? Who did it? Speak, man!"

But Saunders, who was still supporting himself against the wall, only
looked at them with a singular and half-apologetic smile, and then
leaned forward as if to catch the eye of Shuttleworth, who was
recovering consciousness in the uplifted arms of his companions. But
neither spoke.

"It's some d----d Greaser inside!" said Thompson, with sudden ferocity.
"Some of her cursed crew! Break down the doors, boys!"

"Stop!"

It was the voice of Shuttleworth, speaking with an effort. He was
hard hit, somewhere in the groin; pain and blood were coming with
consciousness and movement, and his face was ghastly. Yet there was
the same singular smile of embarrassment which Saunders had worn, and a
touch of invincible disgust in his voice as he stammered quickly, "Don't
be d----d fools! It's no one in THERE. It's only me and HIM! He'll tell
you that. Won't you, Saunders?"

"Yes," said Saunders, leaning anxiously forward, with a brightening
face. "D--n it all--can't you see? It's only--only us."

"You and me, that's all," repeated Shuttleworth, with a feverish laugh.
"Only our d----d foolishness! Think of it, boys! He gave me the lie, and
I drew!"

"Both of us full, you know--reg'lar beasts," said Saunders, sinking back
against the wall. "Kick me, somebody, and finish me off."

"I don't see any weapons here," said Brace gravely, examining the
ground.

"They're inside," said Shuttleworth with tremulous haste. "We began it
in there--just like hogs, you know! Didn't we, Saunders?" bitterly.

"You bet," said Saunders faintly. "Reg'lar swine."

Parks looked graver still, and as he passed a handkerchief around the
wounded man's thigh, said: "But I don't see where you got your pistols,
and how you got out here."

"Clinched, you know; sorter rolled over out here--and--and--oh, d--n
it--don't talk!"

"He means," said Shuttleworth still feebly, "that we--we--grabbed
ANOTHER MAN'S six-shooter and--and--he that is--and they--he--he and
me grabbed each other, and--don't you see--?" but here, becoming more
involved and much weaker, he discreetly fainted away.

And that was all Buckeye ever knew of the affair! For they refused
to speak of it again, and Dr. Duchesne gravely forbade any further
interrogation. Both men's revolvers were found undischarged in their
holsters, hanging in their respective cabins. The balls which were
afterwards extracted from the two men singularly disappeared; Dr.
Duchesne asserting with a grim smile that they had swallowed them.*

     * It was a frontier superstition that the ball extracted
     from a gunshot wound, if swallowed by the wounded man,
     prevented inflammation or any supervening complications.

Nothing could be ascertained of the facts at the tienda, which at
that hour of the day appeared to have been empty of customers, and was
occupied only by Miss Mendez and her retainers. All surmises as to the
real cause of the quarrel and the reason for the reticence of the two
belligerents were suddenly and unexpectedly stopped by their departure
from Buckeye as soon as their condition permitted, on the alleged
opinion of Dr. Duchesne that the air of the river was dangerous to their
convalescence. The momentary indignation against the tienda which the
two combatants had checked, eventually subsided altogether. After all,
the fight had taken place OUTSIDE; it was not even proven that
the provocation had been given AT the tienda! Its popularity was
undiminished.

PART III.

It was the end of the rainy season, and a wet night. Brace and Parks
were looking from the window over the swollen river, with faces quite as
troubled as the stream below. Nor was the prospect any longer the same.
In the past two years Buckeye had grown into a city. They could now
count a half dozen church spires from the window of the three-storied
brick building which had taken the place of the old wooden Emporium, but
they could also count the brilliantly lit windows of an equal number of
saloons and gambling-houses which glittered through the rain, or, to
use the words of a local critic, "Shone seven nights in the week to the
Gospel shops' ONE!" A difficulty had arisen which the two men had never
dreamed of, and a struggle had taken place between the two rival powers,
which was developing a degree of virulence and intolerance on both sides
that boded no good to Buckeye. The disease which its infancy had escaped
had attacked its adult growth with greater violence. The new American
saloons which competed with Jovita Mendez' Spanish venture had
substituted a brutal masculine sincerity for her veiled feminine
methods. There was higher play, deeper drinking, darker passion. Yet the
opposition, after the fashion of most reformers, were casting back to
the origin of the trouble in Jovita, and were confounding principles
and growth. "If it had not been for her the rule would never have been
broken." "If there was to be a cleaning out of the gambling houses, she
must go first!"

The sounds of a harp and a violin played in the nearest saloon struggled
up to them with the opening and shutting of its swinging baize inner
doors. There was boisterous chanting from certain belated revelers in
the next street which had no such remission. The brawling of the stream
below seemed to be echoed in the uneasy streets; the quiet of the old
days had departed with the sedate, encompassing woods that no longer
fringed the river bank; the restful calm of Nature had receded before
the dusty outskirts of the town.

"It's mighty unfortunate, too," said Brace moodily, "that Shuttleworth
and Saunders, who haven't been in the place since their row, have come
over from Fiddletown to-day, and are banging around town. They haven't
said anything that I know of, but their PRESENCE is quite enough to
revive the old feeling against her shop. The Committee," he added
bitterly, "will be sure to say that not only the first gambling, but the
first shooting in Buckeye took place there. If they get up that story
again--no matter how quiet SHE has become since--no matter what YOU may
say as mayor--it will go hard with her. What's that now?"

They listened breathlessly. Above the brawling of the river, the
twanging of the harp-player, and the receding shouts of the revelers,
they could hear the hollow wooden sidewalks resounding with the dull,
monotonous trampling of closely following feet. Parks rose with a white
face.

"Brace!"

"Yes!"

"Will you stand by me--and HER?"

"Stand by YOU AND HER? Eh? What? Good God! Parks!--you don't mean to say
you--it's gone as far as THAT?"

"Will you or won't you?"

The sound of the trampling had changed to a shuffling on the pavement
below, and then footsteps began to ascend the stairs.

Brace held out his hand quickly and grasped that of Parks as the door
opened to half a dozen men. They were evidently the ringleaders of
the crowd below. There was no hesitation or doubt in their manner;
the unswerving directness which always characterized those illegal
demonstrations lent it something of dignity. Nevertheless, Carpenter,
the spokesman, flushed slightly before Parks' white, determined face.

"Come, Parks, you know what we're after," he said bluntly. "We didn't
come here to parley. We knew YOUR sentiments and what YOU think is your
duty. We know what we consider OURS--and so do you. But we're here to
give you a chance, either as mayor, or, if you prefer it, as the oldest
citizen here, to take a hand in our business to-night. We're not ashamed
of what we're going to do, and we're willing to abide by it; so there's
no reason why we shouldn't speak aboveboard of it to you. We even invite
you to take part in our last 'call' tonight at the Hall."

"Go!" whispered Brace quickly, "YOU'LL GAIN TIME!"

Parks' face changed, and he turned to Carpenter. "Enough," he said
gravely. "I reserve what I have to say of these proceedings till I
join you there." He stopped, whispered a few words to Brace, and then
disappeared as the men descended the stairs, and, joining the crowd
on the pavement, proceeded silently towards the Town Hall. There was
nothing in the appearance of that decorous procession to indicate its
unlawful character or the recklessness with which it was charged.

There were thirty or forty men already seated in the Hall. The meeting
was brief and to the point. The gambling saloons were to be "cleaned
out" that night, the tables and appliances thrown into the street and
burnt, the doors closed, and the gamblers were to be conducted to the
outskirts of the town and forbidden to enter it again on pain of death.

"Does this yer refer to Jovita Mendez' saloon?" asked a voice.

To their surprise the voice was not Parks' but Shuttleworth's. It was
also a matter to be noted that he stood a little forward of the crowd,
and that there was a corresponding movement of a dozen or more men from
Fiddletown who apparently were part of the meeting.

The chairman (No. 10) said there was to be no exception, and certainly
not for the originator of disorder in Buckeye! He was surprised that the
question should be asked by No. 72, who was an old resident of Buckeye,
and who, with No. 73, had suffered from the character of that woman's
saloon.

"That's jest it," said Shuttleworth, "and ez I reckon that SAUNDERS AND
ME did all the disorder there was, and had to turn ourselves out o'
town on account of it, I don't see jest where SHE could come into this
affair. Only," he turned and looked around him, "in one way! And that
way, gentlemen, would be for her to come here and boot one half o' this
kempany out o' town, and shoot the other half! You hear me!--that's so!"
He stopped, tugged a moment at his cravat and loosened his shirt-collar
as if it impeded his utterance, and went on. "I've got to say suthin'
to you gentlemen about me and Saunders and this woman; I've got to
say suthin' that's hard for a white man to say, and him a married man,
too--I've got to say that me and Saunders never had no QU'OLL, never had
NO FIGHT at her shop: I've got to say that me and Saunders got shot by
Jovita Mendez for INSULTIN' HER--for tryin' to treat her as if she was
the common dirt of the turnpike--and served us right! I've got to say
that Saunders and me made a bet that for all her airs she wasn't no
better than she might be, and we went there drunk to try her--and that
we got left, with two shots into us like hounds as we were! That's
so!--wasn't it, Saunders?"

"With two shots inter us like hounds ez we were," repeated Saunders with
deliberate precision.

"And I've got to say suthin' more, gen'lemen," continued Shuttleworth,
now entirely removing his coat and vest, and apparently shaking himself
free from any extraneous trammels. "I've got to say this--I've got to
say that thar ain't a man in Buckeye, from Dirty Dick over yon to the
mayor of this town, ez hasn't tried the same thing on and got left--got
left, without shootin' maybe, more's the pity, but got left all the
same! And I've got to say," lifting his voice, "THAT EF THAT'S WHAT YOU
CALL DISORDERLINESS IN HER--if that's what yo'r turnin' this woman out
o' town for--why"--

He stopped, absolutely breathless and gasping. For there was a momentary
shock of surprise and shame, and then he was overborne by peal after
peal of inextinguishable laughter. But it was the laughter that
precipitated doubt, enlightened justice, cleared confusion, and--saved
them!

In vain a few struggled to remind them that the question of the OTHER
saloons was still unaffected. It was lost in the motion enthusiastically
put and carried that the Committee should instantly accompany Saunders
and Shuttleworth to Jovita's saloon to make an apology in their
presence. Five minutes later they halted hilariously before its door.
But it was closed, dark, and silent!

Their sudden onset and alarm brought Sanchicha to the half-opened door.
"Ah, yes! the Senorita? Bueno! She had just left for Fiddletown with
the Senor Parks, the honorable mayor. They had been married only a few
moments before by the Reverend Mr. McCorkle!"

THEIR UNCLE FROM CALIFORNIA.

PART I.

It was bitterly cold. When night fell over Lakeville, Wisconsin, the
sunset, which had flickered rather than glowed in the western sky, took
upon itself a still more boreal tremulousness, until at last it seemed
to fade away in cold blue shivers to the zenith. Nothing else stirred;
in the crisp still air the evening smoke of chimneys rose threadlike
and vanished. The stars were early, pale, and pitiless; when the later
moonlight fell, it appeared only to whiten the stiffened earth like
snow, except where it made a dull, pewter-like film over the three
frozen lakes which encompassed the town.

The site of the town itself was rarely beautiful, and its pioneers
and founders had carried out the suggestions they had found there with
loving taste and intelligence.

Themselves old voyageurs, trappers, and traders, they still loved Nature
too well to exclude her from the restful homes they had achieved after
years of toiling face to face with her. So a strip of primeval forest on
the one side, and rolling level prairie on the other, still came up to
the base of the hill, whereon they had built certain solid houses, which
a second generation had beautified and improved with modern taste,
but which still retained their old honesty of foundation and wholesome
rustic space. These yet stood among the old trees, military squares,
and broad sloping avenues of the town. Seen from the railway by day, the
regularity of streets and blocks was hidden by environing trees; there
remained only a picturesque lifting of rustic gardens, brown roofs,
gables, spires, and cupolas above the mirroring lake: seen from the
railway this bitter night, the invisible terraces and streets were now
pricked out by symmetrical lines and curves of sparkling lights, which
glittered through the leafless boughs and seemed to encircle the hill
like a diadem.

Central in the chiefest square, and yet preserving its old lordly
isolation in a wooded garden, the homestead of Enoch Lane stood with all
its modern additions and improvements. Already these included not only
the latest phases of decoration, but various treasures brought by the
second generation from Europe, which they were wont to visit, but from
which they always contentedly returned to their little provincial town.
Whether there was some instinctive yearning, like the stirred sap of
great forests, in their wholesome pioneer blood, or whether there was
some occult fascination in the pretty town-crested hill itself, it was
still certain that the richest inhabitants always preferred to live in
Lakeville. Even the young, who left it to seek their fortune elsewhere,
came back to enjoy their success under the sylvan vaults of this vast
ancestral roof. And that was why, this 22d of December, 1870, the whole
household of Gabriel Lane was awaiting the arrival from California of
his brother, Sylvester Lane, at the old homestead which he had left
twenty years ago.

"And you don't know how he looks?" said Kitty Lane to her father.

"I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly hair, fair skin,
and blushes when you speak to him."

"Papa!"

"Eh?--Oh, well, he USED to. You see that was twenty-five years ago, when
he left here for boarding-school. He ran away from there, as I told you;
went to sea, and finally brought up at San Francisco."

"And you haven't had any picture, or photograph of him, since?"

"No--that is--I say!--you haven't, any of you, got a picture of
Sylvester, have you?" he turned in a vague parenthetical appeal to the
company of relatives and friends collected in the drawing-room after
dinner.

"Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!"

But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan Marckland say
that Edward Bingham had told her that he was in California when
"Uncle Sylvester" had been nearly hanged by a Vigilance Committee for
protecting a horse thief or a gambler, or some such person. This was
felt to be ineffective as a personal description.

"He's sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come back,"
said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness.

"He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad shoulders,"
said Marie du Page.

There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who was
also a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and Kitty
quickly said,--

"But YOU'VE never seen him?"

"No--but--" She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her spirited
head sideways, in a pretty deprecatory way, with elevated eyebrows and
an expression intended to show the otherwise untranslatable character of
her impression. But it showed quite as pleasantly the other fact, that
she was the daughter of a foreigner, an old French military explorer,
and that she had retained even in Anglo-Saxon Lakeville some of the
Gallic animation.

"Well, how many of you girls are going with me to meet him at the
station?" said Gabriel, dismissing with masculine promptness the lesser
question. "It's time to be off."

"I'd like to go," said Kitty, "and so would Cousin Jane; but really,
papa, you see if YOU don't know him, and WE don't either, and you've got
to satisfy yourself that it's the right man, and then introduce YOURSELF
and then us--and all this on the platform before everybody--it makes it
rather embarrassing for us. And then, as he's your younger brother and
we're supposed to be his affectionate nieces, you know, it would make
HIM feel SO ridiculous!"

"And if he were to KISS you," said Marie tragically, "and then turn out
not to be him!"

"So," continued Kitty, "you'd better take Cousin John, who was more in
Uncle Sylvester's time, to represent the Past of the family, and perhaps
Mr. Gunn"--

"To represent the future, I suppose?" interrupted Gabriel in a wicked
whisper.

"To represent a name that most men of the world in New York and
San Francisco know," went on Kitty, without a blush. "It would make
recognition and introduction easier. And take an extra fur with you,
dear--not for HIM but for yourself. I suppose he's lived so much in the
open air as to laugh at our coddling."

"I don't know about that," said her father thoughtfully; "the last
telegram I have from him, en route, says he's half frozen, and wants a
close carriage sent to the station."

"Of course," said Marie impatiently, "you forget the poor creature comes
from burning canyons and hot golden sands and perpetual sunshine."

"Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I've prepared his room,"
and as her father left the drawing-room Kitty carried off her old
schoolfellow upstairs.

The room selected for the coming Sylvester had been one of the elaborate
guest-chambers, but was now stripped of its more luxurious furniture and
arranged with picturesque yet rural extravagance. A few rare buffalo,
bear, and panther skins were disposed over the bare floor, and even
displayed gracefully over some elaborately rustic chairs. The
handsome French bedstead had been displaced for a small wrought-iron
ascetic-looking couch covered with a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket.
The fireplace had been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearth
extended so as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-covered
hickory logs to take its place. The walls were covered with trophies
of the chase, buck-horns and deer-heads, and a number of Indian arrows
stood in a sheaf in the corners beside a few modern guns and rifles.

"Perfectly lovely," said Marie, "but"--with a slight shiver of her
expressive shoulders--"a little cold and outdoorish, eh?"

"Nonsense," returned Kitty dictatorially, "and if he IS cold, he can
easily light those logs. They always build their open fires under a
tree. Why, even Mr. Gunn used to do that when he was camping out in
the Adirondacks last summer. I call it perfectly comfortable and SO
natural." Nevertheless, they had both tucked their chilly hands under
the fleecy shawls they had snatched from the hall for this hyperborean
expedition.

"You have taken much pains for him, Kaitee," said Marie, with her
faintest foreign intonation. "You will like this strange uncle--you?"

"He is a wonderful man, Marie; he's been everywhere, seen everything,
and done everything out there. He's fought duels, been captured by
Indians and tied to a stake to be tortured. He's been leader of a
Vigilance Committee, and they say that he has often shot and killed men
himself. I'm afraid he's been rather wicked, you know. He's lived alone
in the woods like a hermit without seeing a soul, and then, again, he's
been a chief among the Indians, with Heaven knows how many Indian wives!
They called him 'The Pale-faced Thunderbolt,' my dear, and 'The Young
Man who Swallows the Lightning,' or something like that."

"And what can he want here?" asked Marie.

"To see us, my dear," said Kitty loftily; "and then, too, he has to
settle something about HIS share of the property; for you know grandpa
left a share of it to him. Not that he's ever bothered himself about it,
for he's rich,--a kind of Monte Cristo, you know,--with a gold mine and
an island off the coast, to say nothing of a whole county that he owns,
that is called after him, and millions of wild cattle that he rides
among and lassos! It's dreadfully hard to do. You know you take a long
rope with a slipknot, and you throw it around your head so, and"--

"Hark!" said Marie, with a dramatic start, and her finger on her small
mouth, "he comes!"

There was the clear roll of wheels along the smooth, frozen carriage
sweep towards the house, the sharp crisp click of hoofs on stone, the
opening of heavy doors, the sudden sparkling invasion of frigid air, the
uplifting of voices in greeting,--but all familiar! There were Gabriel
Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane and Cousin
Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the grave measured oratorical
utterance of Parson Dexter, who had joined the party at the station; but
certainly the accents of no STRANGER. Had he come? Yes, for his name
was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had detected a light,
lounging, alien footstep cross the cold strip of marble vestibule. The
two girls exchanged a rapid glance; each looked into the mirror, and
then interrogatively at the other, nodded their heads affirmatively, and
descended to the drawing-room. A group had already drawn round the fire,
and a small central figure, who, with its back turned towards them,
was still enwrapped in an enormous overcoat of rich fur, was engaged in
presenting an alternate small varnished leather boot to the warmth of
the grate. As they entered the room the heavy fur was yielded up with
apparent reluctance, and revealed to the astonished girls a man of
ordinary stature with a slight and elegant figure set off by a traveling
suit of irreproachable cut. His light reddish-yellow hair, mustache,
and sunburned cheek, which seemed all of one color and outline, made it
impossible to detect the gray of the one or the hollowness of the other,
and gave no indication of his age. Yet there was clearly no mistake.
Here was Gabriel Lane seizing their nervously cold fingers and
presenting them to their "Uncle Sylvester."

Far from attempting to kiss Kitty, the stranger for an instant seemed
oblivious of the little hand she offered him in the half-preoccupied
bow he gave her. But Marie was not so easily passed over, and, with her
audacious face challenging his, he abstractedly imparted to the shake of
her hand something of the fervor that he should have shown his relative.
And, then, still warming his feet on the fender, he seemed to have
forgotten them both.

"Accustomed as you have been, sir," said the Reverend Mr. Dexter,
seizing upon an awkward silence, and accenting it laboriously, "perhaps
I should say INURED as you have been to the exciting and stirring
incidents of a lawless and adventurous community, you doubtless find
in a pastoral, yet cultivated and refined, seclusion like Lakeville a
degree of"--

"Oh, several degrees," said Uncle Sylvester, blandly flicking bits
of buffalo hair from his well-fitting trousers; "it's colder, you
know--much colder."

"I was referring to a less material contrast," continued Mr. Dexter,
with a resigned smile; "yet, as to the mere question of cold, I am
told, sir, that in California there are certain severe regions of
altitude--although the mean temperature"--

"I suppose out in California you fellows would say our temperature was a
darned sight MEANER, eh?" broke in Amos Gunn, with a confidential
glance at the others, as if offering a humorous diversion suited to
the Californian taste. Uncle Sylvester did not, however, smile. Gazing
critically at Gunn, he said thoughtfully: "I think not; I've even known
men killed for saying less than that," and turned to the clergyman. "You
are quite right; some of the higher passes are very cold. I was lost in
one of them in '56 with a small party. We were seventy miles from
any settlement, we had had nothing to eat for thirty-six hours; our
campfire, melting the snow, sank twelve feet below the surface." The
circle closed eagerly around him, Marie, Kitty, and Cousin Jane pressing
forward with excited faces; even the clergyman assumed an expression of
profound interest. "A man by the name of Thompson, I think," continued
Uncle Sylvester, thoughtfully gazing at the fire, "was frozen a few
yards away. Towards morning, having been fifty-eight hours without
food, our last drop of whiskey exhausted, and the fire extinguished, we
found"--

"Yes, yes!" said half a dozen voices.

"We found," continued Uncle Sylvester, rubbing his hands cheerfully, "we
found it--exceedingly cold. Yes--EXCEEDINGLY cold!"

There was a dead silence.

"But you escaped!" said Kitty breathlessly.

"I think so. I think we all escaped--that is, except Thompson, if
his name WAS Thompson; it might have been Parker," continued Uncle
Sylvester, gazing with a certain languid astonishment on the eager faces
around him.

"But HOW did you escape?"

"Oh, somehow! I don't remember exactly. I don't think," he went on
reflectively, "that we had to eat Thompson--if it was HIM--at least not
then. No"--with a faint effort of recollection--"that would have been
another affair. Yes," assuringly to the eager, frightened eyes of Cousin
Jane, "you are quite right, that was something altogether different.
Dear me; one quite mixes up these things. Eh?"

A servant had entered, and after a hurried colloquy with Gabriel, the
latter turned to Uncle Sylvester--

"Excuse me, but I think there must be some mistake! We brought up your
luggage with you--two trunks--in the station wagon. A man has just
arrived with three more, which he says are yours."

"There should be five in all, I think," said Uncle Sylvester
thoughtfully.

"Maybe there are, sir, I didn't count exactly," said the servant.

"All right," said Uncle Sylvester cheerfully, turning to his brother.
"You can put them in my room or on the landing, except two marked 'L' in
a triangle. They contain some things I picked up for you and the girls.
We'll look them over in the morning. And, if you don't mind, I'll excuse
myself now and go to bed."

"But it's only half past ten," said Gabriel remonstratingly. "You don't,
surely, go to bed at half past ten?"

"I do when I travel. Travel is SO exhausting. Good-night! Don't let
anybody disturb themselves to come with me."

He bowed languidly to the company, and disappeared with a yawn
gracefully disguised into a parting smile.

"Well!" said Cousin Jane, drawing a long breath.

"I don't believe it's your Uncle Sylvester at all!" said Marie
vivaciously. "It's some trick that Gabriel is playing upon us. And he's
not even a good actor--he forgets his part."

"And, then, five trunks for one single man! Heavens! what can he have in
them" said Cousin Emma.

"Perhaps his confederates, to spring out upon us at night, after
everybody's asleep."

"Are you sure you remembered him, papa?" said Kitty sotto voce.

"Certainly. And, my dear child, he knows all the family history as well
as you do; and"--continued her father with a slight laugh that did not,
however, conceal a certain seriousness that was new to him--"I only wish
I understood as much about the property as he does. By the way, Amos,"
he broke off suddenly, turning to the young man, "he seemed to know your
people."

"Most men in the financial world do," said Gunn a little superciliously.

"Yes; but he asked me if you hadn't a relative of some kind in Southern
California or Mexico."

A slight flush--so slight that only the keen, vivaciously observant eyes
of Marie noticed it--passed over the young man's face.

"I believe it is a known fact that our branch of the family never
emigrated from their native town," he said emphatically. "The Gunns were
rather peculiar and particular in that respect."

"Then there were no offshoots from the old STOCK," said Gabriel.

Nevertheless, this pet joke of Gabriel's did not dissipate the
constraint and disappointment left upon the company by Uncle Sylvester's
unsatisfying performance and early withdrawal, and they separated soon
after, Kitty and Marie being glad to escape upstairs together. On the
landing they met two of the Irish housemaids in a state of agitated
exhaustion. It appeared that the "sthrange gintleman" had requested that
his bed be remade from bedclothes and bedding ALWAYS CARRIED WITH HIM
IN HIS TRUNKS! From their apologetic tone it was evident that he had
liberally rewarded them. "Shure, Miss," protested Norah, in deprecation
of Kitty's flashing eye, "there's thim that's lived among shnakes and
poysin riptiles and faverous disayses that's particklar av the beds
and sheets they lie on. Hisht! Howly Mother! it's something else he's
wanting now!"

The door of Uncle Sylvester's room had slowly opened, and a blue
pyjama'd sleeve appeared, carefully depositing the sheaf of bows and
arrows outside the door. "I say, Norah, or Bridget there, some of
you take those infernal things away. And look out, will you, for the
arrowheads are deadly poison. The fool who got 'em didn't know they were
African, and not Indian at all! And hold on!" The hand vanished, and
presently reappeared holding two rifles. "And take these away, too!
They're loaded, capped, and NOT on the half-cock! A jar, a fall, the
slightest shock is enough to send them off!"

"I'm dreadfully sorry that you should find it so uncomfortable in our
house, Uncle Sylvester," said Kitty, with a flushed cheek and vibrating
voice.

"Oh, it's you--is it?" said Uncle Sylvester's voice cheerfully.
"I thought it was Bridget out there. No, I don't intend to find it
uncomfortable. That's why I'm putting these things outside. But, for
Heaven's sake, don't YOU touch them. Leave that to the ineffable ass who
put them there. Good-night!"

The door closed; the whispering voices of the girls faded from the
corridor; the lights were lowered in the central hall, only the red
Cyclopean eye of an enormous columnar stove, like a lighthouse, gleamed
through the darkness. Outside, the silent night sparkled, glistened, and
finally paled. Towards morning, having invested the sturdy wooden outer
walls of the house and filmed with delicate tracery every available
inch of window pane, it seemed stealthily to invade the house itself,
stilling and chilling it as it drew closer around its central heart
of warmth and life. Only once the frigid stillness was broken by the
opening of a door and steps along the corridor. This was preceded by an
acrid smell of burning bark.

It was subtle enough to permeate the upper floor and the bedroom of
Marie du Page, who was that night a light and nervous sleeper. Peering
from her door, she could see, on the lower corridor, the extraordinary
spectacle of Uncle Sylvester, robed in a gorgeous Japanese dressing-gown
of quilted satin trimmed with the fur of the blue fox, candle in hand,
leisurely examining the wall of the passage. Presently, drawing out a
footrule from his pocket, he actually began to measure it! Miss Du
Page saw no more. Hurriedly closing her door, she locked and bolted it,
firmly convinced that Gabriel Lane was harboring in the guise of Uncle
Sylvester a somnambulist, a maniac, or an impostor.

PART II.

"It doesn't seem as if Uncle Sylvester was any the more comfortable
for having his own private bedding with him," said Kitty Lane, entering
Marie's room early the next morning. "Bridget found him curled up in his
furs like a cat asleep on the drawing-room sofa this morning."

Marie started; she remembered her last night's vision. But some
instinct--she knew not what--kept her from revealing it at this moment.
She only said a little ironically:--

"Perhaps he missed the wild freedom of his barbaric life in a small
bedroom."

"No. Bridget says he said something about being smoked out of his room
by a ridiculous wood fire. The idea! As if a man brought up in the woods
couldn't stand a little smoke. No--that's his excuse! Marie!--do you
know what I firmly believe?"

"No," said Marie quickly.

"I firmly believe that poor man is ashamed of his past rough life,
and does everything he can to forget it. That's why he affects those
ultra-civilized and effeminate ways, and goes to the other extreme, as
people always do."

"Then you think he's really reformed, and isn't likely to take an
impulse to rob and murder anybody again?"

"Why, Marie, what nonsense!"

Nevertheless, Uncle Sylvester appeared quite fresh and cheerful at
breakfast. It seemed that he had lit the fire before undressing, but
the green logs were piled so far into the room that the smoke nearly
suffocated him. Fearful of alarming the house by letting the smoke
escape through the door, he opened the window, and when it had partly
dispersed, sought refuge himself from the arctic air of his bedroom
in the drawing-room. So far the act did not seem inconsistent with his
sanity, or even intelligence and consideration for others. But Marie
fixed upon him a pair of black, audacious eyes.

"Did you ever walk in your sleep, Mr. Lane?"

"No; but"--thoughtfully breaking an egg--"I have ridden, I think."

"In your sleep? Oh, do tell us all about it!" said Cousins Jane and Emma
in chorus.

Uncle Sylvester cast a resigned glance out of the window. "Oh,
yes--certainly; it isn't much. You see at one time I was in the habit of
making long monotonous journeys, and they were often exhausting, and,"
he added, becoming wearied as if at the recollection, "always dreadfully
tiresome. As the trail was sometimes very uncertain and dangerous, I
rode a very surefooted mule that could go anywhere where there was space
big enough to set her small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down the
slope of a mountain towards a narrow valley and river that were crossed
by an old, abandoned flume, of which nothing was now left but the
upright trestle-work and long horizontal string-piece. As the trail was
very difficult and the mule's pace was slow, I found myself dozing at
times, and at last I must have fallen asleep. I think I must have been
awakened by a singular regularity in the movement of the mule--or else
it was the monotony of step that had put me to sleep and the cessation
of it awakened me. You see, at first I was not certain that I wasn't
really dreaming. For the trail seemed to have disappeared; the wall of
rock on one side had vanished also, and there appeared to be nothing
ahead of me but the opposite hillside."

Uncle Sylvester stopped to look out of the window at a passing carriage.
Then he went on. "The moon came out, and I saw what had happened. The
mule, either of her own free will, or obeying some movement I had given
the reins in my sleep, had swerved from the trail, got on top of
the flume, and was actually walking across the valley on the narrow
string-piece, a foot wide, half a mile long, and sixty feet from the
ground. I knew," he continued, examining his napkin thoughtfully, "that
she was perfectly surefooted, and that if I kept quiet she could make
the passage, but I suddenly remembered that midway there was a break and
gap of twenty feet in the continuous line, and that the string-piece was
too narrow to allow her to turn round and retrace her steps."

"Good heavens!" said Cousin Jane.

"I beg your pardon?" said Uncle Sylvester politely.

"I only said, 'Good heavens!' Well?" she added impatiently.

"Well?" repeated Uncle Sylvester vaguely. "Oh, that's all. I only wanted
to explain what I meant by saying I had ridden in my sleep."

"But," said Cousin Jane, leaning across the table with grim
deliberation and emphasizing each word with the handle of her knife,
"how--did--you--and--that--mule get down?"

"Oh, with slings and ropes, you know--so," demonstrating by placing his
napkin-ring in a sling made of his napkin.

"And I suppose you carried the slings and ropes with you in your five
trunks!" gasped Cousin Jane.

"No. Fellows on the river brought 'em in the morning. Mighty spry chaps,
those river miners."

"Very!" said Cousin Jane.

Breakfast over, they were not surprised that their sybaritic guest
excused himself from an inspection of the town in the frigid morning
air, and declined joining a skating party to the lake on the ground that
he could keep warmer indoors with half the exertion. An hour later found
him standing before the fire in Gabriel Lane's study, looking languidly
down on his elder brother.

"Then, as far as I can see," he said quietly, "you have made ducks and
drakes of your share of the property, and that virtually you are in the
hands of this man Gunn and his father."

"You're putting it too strongly," said Gabriel deprecatingly. "In the
first place, my investments with Gunn's firm are by no means failures,
and they only hold as security a mortgage on the forest land below the
hill. It's scarcely worth the money. I would have sold it long ago, but
it had been a fancy of father's to keep it wild land for the sake of old
times and the healthiness of the town."

"There used to be a log cabin there, where the old man had a habit of
camping out whenever he felt cramped by civilization up here, wasn't
there?" said Uncle Sylvester meditatively.

"Yes," said Gabriel impatiently; "it's still there--but to return to Mr.
Gunn. He has taken a fancy to Kitty, and even if I could not lift the
mortgage, there's some possibility that the land would still remain in
the family."

"I think I'll drive over this afternoon and take a look at the old
shanty if this infernal weather lets up."

"Yes; but just now, my dear Sylvester, let us attend to business. I want
to show you those investments."

"Oh, certainly; trot 'em out," said his brother, plucking up a
simulation of interest as he took a seat at the table.

From a drawer of his desk Gabriel brought out a bundle of prospectuses
and laid them before Uncle Sylvester.

A languid smile of recognition lit up the latter's face. "Ah! yes," he
said, glancing at them. "The old lot: 'Carmelita,' 'Santa Maria,' and
'Preciosa!' Just as I imagined--and yet who'd have thought of seeing
them HERE! A good deal rouged and powdered, Miss Carmelita, since I
first knew you! Considerably bolstered up by miraculous testimony to
your powers, my dear Santa Maria, since the day I found you out, to my
cost! And you too, Preciosa!--a precious lot of money I dropped on you
in the old days!"

"You are joking," said Gabriel, with an uneasy smile. "You don't mean to
imply that this stock is old and worthless?"

"There isn't a capital in America or Europe where for the last five
years it hasn't been floated with a new character each time. My dear
Gabriel, that stock isn't worth the paper it is printed on."

"But it is impossible that an experienced financier like Gunn could be
deceived!"

"I'm sorry to hear THAT."

"Come, Sylvester! confess you've taken a prejudice against Gunn from
your sudden dislike of his son! And what have you against him?"

"I couldn't say exactly," said Uncle Sylvester reflectively. "It may be
his eyes, or only his cravat! But," rising cheerfully and placing his
hand lightly on his brother's shoulder, "don't YOU worry yourself about
that stock, old man; I'LL see that somebody else has the worry and you
the cash. And as to the land and--Kitty--well, you hold on to them both
until you find out which the young man is really after."

"And then?" said Gabriel, with a smile.

"Don't give him either! But, I say, haven't we had enough business this
morning? Let's talk of something else. Who's the French girl?"

"Marie? She's the daughter of Jules du Page--don't you
remember?--father's friend. When Jules died, it was always thought
that father, who had half adopted her as a child, would leave her
some legacy. But you know that father died without making a will, and
that--rich as he was--his actual assets were far less than we had reason
to expect. Kitty, who felt the disappointment as keenly as her friend, I
believe would have divided her own share with her. It's odd, by the way,
that father could have been so deceived in the amount of his capital,
or how he got rid of his money in a way that we knew nothing of. Do you
know, Sylvester, I've sometimes suspected"--

"What?" said Uncle Sylvester suddenly.

The bored languor of his face had abruptly vanished. Every muscle was
alert; his gray eyes glittered.

"That he advanced money to Du Page, who lost it, or that they speculated
together," returned Gabriel, who, following Uncle Sylvester's voice
only, had not noticed the change of expression.

"That would seem to be a weakness of the Lane family," said Uncle
Sylvester grimly, with a return of his former carelessness. "But that is
not YOUR own opinion--that's a suggestion of some one else?"

"Well," said Gabriel, with a laugh and a slight addition of color, "it
WAS Gunn's theory. As a man of the world and a practical financier, you
know."

"And you've talked with HIM about it?"

"Yes. It was a matter of general wonder years ago."

"Very likely--but, just now, don't you think we've had enough financial
talk?" said Uncle Sylvester, with a bored contraction of his eyebrows.
"Come," looking around the room, "you've changed the interior of the old
house."

"Yes. Unfortunately, just after father's death it was put in the hands
of a local architect or builder, one of father's old friends, but not
a very skillful workman, who made changes while the family were away.
That's why your present bedroom, which was father's old study, had a
slice taken off it to make the corridor larger, and why the big chimney
and hearthstone are still there, although the fireplace is modernized.
That was Flint's stupidity."

"Whose stupidity?" asked Uncle Sylvester, trimming his nails.

"Flint's--the old architect."

"Why didn't you make him change it back again?"

"He left Lakeville shortly after, and I brought an architect from St.
Louis after I returned from Europe. But nothing could be done to your
room without taking down the chimney, so it remained as Flint left it."

"That reminds me, Gabriel, I'm afraid I spoke rather cavalierly to
Kitty, last night, about the arrangements of the room. The fact is, I've
taken a fancy to it, and should like to fit it up myself. Have I your
permission?"

"Certainly, my dear Sylvester."

"I've some knickknacks in my trunks, and I'll do it at once."

"As you like."

"And you'll see that I am not disturbed; and you'll explain it to Kitty,
with my apologies?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm off."

Gabriel glanced at his brother with a perplexed smile. Here was the
bored traveler, explorer, gold-seeker, soldier of fortune, actually as
pleased as a girl over the prospect of arranging his room! He called
after him, "Sylvester!"

"Yes."

"I say, if you could, you know, just try to interest these people
to-night with some of your adventures--something told SERIOUSLY, you
know, as if you really were in earnest--I'd be awfully obliged to you.
The fact is,--you'll excuse me,--but they think you don't come up to
your reputation."

"They want a story?"

"Yes,--one of your experiences."

"I'll give them one. Ta-ta!"

For the rest of the day Uncle Sylvester was invisible, although his
active presence in his room was betrayed by the sound of hammering and
moving of furniture. As the remainder of the party were skating on
the lake, this eccentricity was not remarked except by one,--Marie du
Page,--who on pretense of a slight cold had stayed at home. But with her
suspicions of the former night, she had determined to watch the singular
relative of her friend. Added to a natural loyalty to the Lanes, she
was moved by a certain curiosity and fascination towards this
incomprehensible man.

The house was very quiet when she stole out of her room and passed
softly along the corridor; she examined the wall carefully to discover
anything that might have excited the visitor's attention. There were a
few large engravings hanging there; could he have designed to replace
them by some others? Suddenly she was struck with the distinct
conviction that the wall of the corridor did not coincide with the wall
of his room as represented by the line of the door. There was certainly
a space between the two walls unaccounted for. This was undoubtedly what
had attracted HIS attention; but what BUSINESS was it of his?

She reflected that she had seen in the wall of the conservatory an old
closed staircase, now used as shelves for dried herbs and seeds, which
she had been told was the old-time communication between the garden
and Grandfather Lane's study,--the room now occupied by the stranger.
Perhaps it led still farther, and thus accounted for the space.
Determined to satisfy herself, she noiselessly descended to the
conservatory. There, surely, was the staircase,--a narrow flight of
wooden steps encumbered with packages of herbs,--losing itself in upper
darkness. By the aid of a candle she managed to grope and pick her way
up step by step. Then she paused. The staircase had abruptly ended on
the level of the study, now cut off from it by the new partition. She
was in a stifling inclosure, formed by the walls, scarcely eighteen
inches wide. It was made narrower by a singular excrescence on the old
wall, which seemed to have been a bricked closet, now half destroyed
and in ruins. She turned to descend, when a strange sound from Uncle
Sylvester's room struck her ear. It was the sound of tapping on the
floor close to the partition, within a foot of where she was standing.
At the same moment there was a decided movement of the plank of the
flooring beneath the partition: it began to slide slowly, and then was
gradually withdrawn into the room. With prompt presence of mind, she
instantly extinguished her candle and drew herself breathlessly against
the partition.

When the plank was entirely withdrawn, a ray of light slipped through
the opening, revealing the bare rafters of the floor, and a hand and arm
inserted under the partition, groping as if towards the bricked closet.
As the fingers of the exploring hand were widely extended, Marie had no
difficulty in recognizing on one of them a peculiar signet ring which
Uncle Sylvester wore. A swift impulse seized her. To the audacious Marie
impulse and action were the same thing. Bending stealthily over the
aperture, she suddenly snatched the ring from the extended finger. The
hand was quickly withdrawn with a start and uncontrolled exclamation,
and she availed herself of that instant to glide rapidly down the
stairs.

She regained her room stealthily, having the satisfaction a moment later
of hearing Uncle Sylvester's door open and the sound of his footsteps in
the corridor. But he was evidently unable to discover any outer ingress
to the inclosure, or believed the loss of his ring an accident, for he
presently returned. Meantime, what was she to do?

Tell Kitty of her discovery, and show the ring? No--not yet! Oddly
enough, now that she had the ring, taken from his wicked finger in
the very act, she found it as difficult as ever to believe in his
burglarious design. She must wait. The mischief--if there had been
mischief--was done; the breaking in of the bricked closet was, from the
appearance of the ruins, a bygone act. Could it have been some youthful
escapade of Uncle Sylvester's, the scene of which he was revisiting as
criminals are compelled to do? And had there been anything taken from
the closet--or was its destruction a part of the changes in the old
house? How could she find out without asking Kitty? There was one way.
She remembered that Mr. Gunn had once shown a great deal of interest
to Kitty about the old homestead, and even of old Mr. Lane's woodland
cabin. She would ask HIM. It was a friendly act, for Kitty had not of
late been very kind to him.

The opportunity presented itself at dusk, as Mr. Gunn, somewhat
abstracted, stood apart at the drawing-room window. Marie hoped he had
enjoyed himself while skating; her stupid cold had kept her indoors. She
had amused herself rambling about the old homestead; it was such a queer
place, so full of old nooks and corners and unaccountable spaces. Just
the place, she would think, where old treasures might have been stored.
Eh?

Mr. Gunn had not spoken--he had only coughed. But in the darkness his
eyes were fixed angrily on her face. Without observing it, she went on.
She knew he was interested in the old house; she had heard him talk
to Kitty about it: had Kitty ever said anything about some old secret
hoarding place?

No, certainly not! And she was mistaken, he never was interested in
the house! He could not understand what had put that idea in her head!
Unless it was this ridiculous, shady stranger in the guise of an uncle
whom they had got there. It was like his affectation!

"Oh, dear, no," said Marie, with unmistakable truthfulness, "HE did not
say anything. But," with sudden inconsistent aggression, "is THAT the
way you speak to Kitty of her uncle?"

Really he didn't know--he was joking only, and he was afraid he must
just now ask her to excuse him. He had received letters that made it
possible that he might be called suddenly to New York at any moment.
Marie stared. It was evident that he had proposed to Kitty and been
rejected! But she was no nearer her discovery.

Nor was there the least revelation in the calm, half-bored, yet
good-humored presence of the wicked uncle at dinner. So indifferent
did he seem, not only to his own villainy but even to the loss it had
entailed, that she had a wild impulse to take the ring from her pocket
and display it on her own finger before him then and there. But the
conviction that he would in some way be equal to the occasion prevented
her. The dinner passed off with some constraint, no doubt emanating from
the conscious Kitty and Gunn. Nevertheless, when they had returned to
the drawing-room, Gabriel rubbed his hands expectantly.

"I prevailed on Sylvester this morning to promise to tell us some of his
experiences--something COMPLETE and satisfactory this time. Eh?"

Uncle Sylvester, warming his cold blood before the fire, looked
momentarily forgetful and--disappointing. Cousins Jane and Emma shrugged
their shoulders.

"Eh," said Uncle Sylvester absently, "er--er--oh yes! Well" (more
cheerfully), "about what, eh?"

"Let it be," said Marie pointedly, fixing her black magnetic eyes on the
wicked stranger, "let it be something about the DISCOVERY of gold, or a
buried TREASURE HOARD, or a robbery."

To her intense disgust Uncle Sylvester, far from being discomfited or
confused, actually looked pleased, and his gray eyes thawed slightly.

"Certainly," he said. "Well, then! Down on the San Joaquin River there
was an old chap--one of the earliest settlers--in fact, he'd come on
from Oregon before the gold discovery. His name, dear me!"--continued
Uncle Sylvester, with an effort of memory and apparently beginning
already to lose his interest in the story--"was--er--Flint."

As Uncle Sylvester paused here, Cousin Jane broke in impatiently. "Well,
that's not an uncommon name. There was an old carpenter here in your
father's time who was called Flint."

"Yes," said Uncle Sylvester languidly. "But there is, or was, something
uncommon about it--and that's the point of the story, for in the old
time Flint and Gunn were of the same stock."

"Is this a Californian joke?" said Gunn, with a forced smile on his
flushed face. "If so, spare me, for it's an old one."

"It's much older HISTORY, Mr. Gunn," said Uncle Sylvester blandly,
"which I remember from a boy. When the first Flint traded near Sault
Sainte Marie, the Canadian voyageurs literally translated his name into
Pierre a Fusil, and he went by that name always. But when the English
superseded the French in numbers and language the name was literally
translated back again into 'Peter Gunn,' which his descendants bear."

"A labored form of the old joke," said Gunn, turning contemptuously
away.

"But the story," said Cousins Jane and Emma. "The story of the gold
discovery--never mind the names."

"Excuse me," said Uncle Sylvester, placing his hand in the breast of his
coat with a delightful exaggeration of offended dignity. "But, doubts
having been cast upon my preliminary statement, I fear I must decline
proceeding further." Nevertheless, he smiled unblushingly at Miss Du
Page as he followed Gunn from the room.

The next morning those who had noticed the strained relations of Miss
Kitty and Mr. Gunn were not surprised that the latter was recalled on
pressing business to New York by the first train; but it was a matter of
some astonishment to Gabriel Lane and Marie du Page that Uncle Sylvester
should have been up early, and actually accompanied that gentleman
as far as the station! Indeed, the languid explorer and gold-seeker
exhibited remarkable activity, and, clad in a rough tourist suit,
announced, over the breakfast-table, his intention of taking a long
tramp through the woods, which he had not revisited since a boy. To this
end he had even provided himself with a small knapsack, and for once
realized Kitty's ideal of his character.

"Don't go too far," said Gabriel, "for, although the cold has moderated,
the barometer is falling fast, and there is every appearance of snow.
Take care you are not caught in one of our blizzards."

"But YOU are all going on the lake to skate!" protested Uncle Sylvester.

"Yes; for the very reason that it may be our last chance; but should it
snow we shall be nearer home than you may be."

Nevertheless, when it came on to snow, as Gabriel had predicted, the
skating party was by no means so near home as he had imagined. A shrewd
keenness and some stimulating electric condition of the atmosphere had
tempted the young people far out on the lake, and they had ignored the
first fall of fine grayish granulations that swept along the icy surface
like little puffs of dust or smoke. Then the fall grew thicker, the gray
sky contracted, the hurrying flakes, dashed against them by a fierce
northwester, were larger, heavier, and seemed an almost palpable force
that held them back. Their skates, already clogged with drift, were
beginning to be useless. The bare wind-swept spaces were becoming rarer;
they could only stumble on blindly towards the nearest shore. Nor when
they reached it were they yet safe; they could scarcely stand against
the still increasing storm that was fast obliterating the banks and
stretch of meadow beyond. Their only hope of shelter was the range of
woods that joined the hill. Holding hands in single file, the
little party, consisting of Kitty, Marie, and Cousins Jane and
Emma--stout-hearted Gabriel leading and Cousin John bringing up the
rear--at last succeeded in reaching it, and were rejoiced to find
themselves near old Lane's half-ruined cabin. To their added joy and
astonishment, whiffs of whirling smoke were issuing from the crumbling
chimney. They ran to the crazy door, pushed aside its weak fastening,
and found--Uncle Sylvester calmly enjoying a pipe before a blazing fire.
A small pickaxe and crowbar were lying upon a mound of freshly turned
earth beside the chimney, where the rotten flooring had been torn up.

The tumultuous entrance of the skating party required no explanation;
but when congratulations had been exchanged, the wet snow shaken off,
and they had drawn round the fire, curious eyes were cast upon the
solitary occupant and the pile of earth and debris before him.

"I believe," said Gabriel laughingly, "that you have been so bored here
that you have actually played at gold-hunting for amusement."

Uncle Sylvester took the pipe from his mouth and nodded.

"It's a common diversion of yours," said Marie audaciously.

Uncle Sylvester smiled sweetly.

"And have you been successful THIS TIME?" asked Marie.

"I got the color."

"Eh?"

Uncle Sylvester rose and placed himself with his back to the fire,
gently surveying the assembled group.

"I was interrupted in a story of gold-digging last evening," he said
blandly. "How far had I got?"

"You were down on the San Joaquin River in the spring of '50, with a
chap named Flint," chorused Cousins Jane and Emma promptly.

"Ah! yes," said Uncle Sylvester. "Well, in those days there was a
scarcity of money in the diggings. Gold dust there was in plenty, but no
COIN. You can fancy it was a bother to weigh out a pinch of dust every
time you wanted a drink of whiskey or a pound of flour; but there was
no other legal tender. Pretty soon, however, a lot of gold and silver
pieces found their way into circulation in our camp and the camps around
us. They were foreign--old French and English coins. Here's one of
them that I kept." He took from his pocket a gold coin and handed it to
Gabriel.

Lane rose to his feet with an exclamation:

"Why, this is like the louis-d'or that grandfather saved through the war
and gave to father."

Uncle Sylvester took the coin back, placed it in his left eye, like a
monocle, and winked gravely at the company.

"It is the SAME!" he went on quietly. "I was interested, for I had a
good memory, and I remembered that, as a boy, grandfather had shown
me one of those coins and told me he was keeping them for old Jules du
Page, who didn't believe in banks and bank-notes. Well, I traced them to
a trader called Flint, who was shipping gold dust from Stockton to Peter
Gunn & Sons, in New York."

"To whom?" asked Gabriel quickly.

"Old Gunn--the father of your friend!" said Uncle Sylvester blandly. "We
talked the matter over on our way to the station this morning. Well, to
return. Flint only said that he had got them from a man called Thompson,
who had got them from somebody else in exchange for goods. A year or
two afterwards this same Thompson happened to be frozen up with me in
Starvation Camp. When he thought he was dying he confessed that he had
been bribed by Flint to say what he had said, but that he believed the
coins were stolen. Meantime, Flint had disappeared. Other things claimed
my attention. I had quite forgotten him, until one night, five years
afterwards, I blundered into a deserted mining-camp, by falling asleep
on my mule, who carried me across a broken flume, but--I think I told
you that story already."

"You never finished it," said Cousin Jane sharply.

"Let me do so now, then. I was really saved by some Indians, who took me
for a spirit up aloft there in the moonlight and spread the alarm. The
first white man they brought me was a wretched drunkard known to the
boys as 'Old Fusil,' or 'Fusel Oil,' who went into delirium tremens at
the sight of me. Well, who do you suppose he turned out to be? Flint!
Flint played out and ruined! Cast off and discarded by his relations in
New York--the foundation of whose fortunes he had laid by the villainy
they had accepted and condoned. For Flint, as the carpenter of the old
homestead, had discovered the existence of a bricked closet in the wall
of father's study, partitioned it off so that he could break into it
without detection and rifle it at his leisure, and who had thus carried
off that part of grandfather's hoard which father had concealed there.
He knew it could never be missed by the descendants. But, through haste
or ignorance, he DID NOT TOUCH THE PAPERS and documents also hidden
there. And THEY told of the existence of grandfather's second cache, or
hiding-place, beneath this hearth, and were left for me to discover."

He coolly relit his pipe, fixed his eyes on Marie without apparently
paying attention to the breathless scrutiny of the others, and went on:
"Flint, alias Pierre a Fusil, alias Gunn, died a maniac. I resolved to
test the truth of his story. I came here. I knew the old homestead, as
a boy who had wandered over every part of it, far better than you,
Gabriel, or any one. The elder Gunn had only heard of it through the
criminal disclosure of his relative, and only wished to absorb it
through his son in time, and thus obliterate all trace of Flint's
outrage. I recognized the room perfectly--thanks to our dear Kitty, who
had taken up the carpet, which thus disclosed the loose plank before the
closet that was hidden by the partition. Under pretext of rearranging
the room--for which Kitty will forgive me--I spent the day behind a
locked door, making my way through the partition. There I found the
rifled closet, but the papers intact. They contained a full description
of the sum taken by Flint, and also of a larger sum buried in a cask
beside this chimney. I had just finished unearthing it a few moments
before you came. I had at first hoped to offer it to the family as a
Christmas gift to-morrow, but"--He stopped and sucked slowly at his
pipe.

"We anticipated you," said Gabriel laughing.

"No," said Uncle Sylvester coolly. "But because it don't happen to
belong to YOU at all! According to the paper I have in my pocket, which
is about as legal a document as I ever saw, it is father's free gift to
Miss Marie du Page."

Kitty threw her arms around her white and breathless friend with
a joyful cry, and honest Gabriel's face shone with unselfish
gratification.

"For yourself, my dear Gabriel, you must be satisfied with the fact that
Messrs. Peter Gunn & Sons will take back your wildcat stock at the price
you paid for it. It is the price they pay for their share in this little
transaction, as I had the honor of pointing out to Mr. Gunn on our way
to the station this morning."

"Then you think that young Mr. Gunn knew that Flint was his relation,
and that he had stolen father's money," said Kitty, "and that Mr. Gunn
only wanted to"--She stopped, with flashing eyes.

"I think he would have liked to have made an arrangement, my dear,
that would keep the secret and the property in the family," said Uncle
Sylvester. "But I don't think he suspected the existence of the second
treasure here."

"And then, sir," said Cousin Jane, "it appears that all these wretched,
unsatisfactory scraps of stories you were telling us were nothing after
all but"--

"My way of telling THIS one," said Uncle Sylvester.

As the others were eagerly gathering around the unearthed treasure,
Marie approached him timidly, all her audacity gone, tears in her eyes,
and his ring held hesitatingly between her fingers. "How can I thank
you--and how CAN you ever forgive me?"

"Well," said Uncle Sylvester, gazing at her critically, "you might keep
the ring to think over it."

End of Project Gutenberg's Sally Dows and Other Stories, by Bret Harte