was completed, one day there drifted into | Here her courage failed her, with all the the valley a riotous cavalcade of "school- characteristic inconsequence of her sex. marms, teachers of the San Francisco A sudden fear of all the dangers she had public schools, out for a holiday. Not safely passed - bears, tarantulas, drunkseverely spectacled Minervas and chaste- en men, and lizards-came upon her. ly armed and mailed Pallases, but, I fear For a moment, as she afterwards exfor the security of Five Forks, very hu- pressed it, "she thought she should die." man, charming, and mischievous young With this belief, probably, she gathered women. At least, so the men thought, three large stones, which she could hardly working in the ditches and tunnelling on lift, for the purpose of throwing a great the hillside; and when, in the interests distance; put two hair pins in her mouth, of science and the mental advancement and carefully readjusted with both hands of juvenile posterity, it was finally settled two stray braids of her lovely blue-black that they should stay in Five Forks two mane which had fallen in gathering the or three days for the sake of visiting the stones. Then she felt in the pockets of various mines, and particularly the Blaz-her linen duster for her card-case, handing Star Tunnel, there was some flutter kerchief, pocket-book, and smelling-botof masculine anxiety. There was atle, and finding them intact, suddenly asconsiderable inquiry for "store clothes," a hopeless overhauling of old and disused raiment, and a general demand for "boiled shirts" and the barber.

Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and impudent hardihood of the sex when gregarious, the schoolmarms rode through the town, admiring openly the handsome faces and manly figures that looked up from the ditches or rose behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. Indeed, it is alleged that Jenny Forester, backed and supported by seven other equally shameless young women, had openly and publicly waved her handkerchief to the florid Hercules of Five Forks - one Tom Flynn, formerly of Virginia - leaving that good-natured but not over-bright giant pulling his blonde mustaches in bashful amazement.

sumed an air of easy, lady-like unconcern, went up the steps of the verandah, and demurely pulled the front door-bell, which she knew would not be answered. After a decent pause, she walked around the encompassing verandah examining the closed shutters of the French windows until she found one that yielded to her touch. Here she paused again to adjust her coquettish hat by the mirror-like surface of the long sash window that reflected the full length of her pretty figure. And then she opened the window and entered the room.

Although long closed, the house had a smell of newness and of fresh paint that was quite unlike the mouldiness of the conventional haunted house. The bright carpets, the cheerful walls, the glistening oilcloths were quite inconsistent with the It was a pleasant June afternoon that idea of a ghost. With childish curiosity Miss Milly Arnot, principal of the pri- she began to explore the silent house, at mary department of one of the public first timidly-opening the doors with a schools of San Francisco, having evaded violent push, and then stepping back from her companions, resolved to put into the threshold to make good a possible operation a plan which had lately sprung retreat; and then more boldly, as she up in her courageous and mischief-loving became convinced of her security and fancy. With that wonderful and mys- absolute loneliness. In one of the chamterious instinct of her sex, from whom no bers, the largest, there were fresh flowers secrets of the affections are hid and to in a vase-evidently gathered that mornwhom all hearts are laid open, she had ing; and what seemed still more remarkheard the story of Hawkins's folly and able, the pitchers and ewers were freshly the existence of the "Idiot Asylum." filled with water. This obliged Miss Alone, on Hawkins's Hill, she had deter- Milly to notice another singular fact, mined to penetrate its seclusion. Skirt-namely, that the house was free from ing the underbrush at the foot of the dust the one most obtrusive and penehill, she managed to keep the heaviest trating visitor of Five Forks. The floors timber between herself and the Blazing and carpets had been recently swept, the Star Tunnel at its base, as well as the chairs and furniture carefully wiped and cabin of Hawkins, half-way up the ascent, dusted. If the house was haunted, it until, by a circuitous route, at last she was possessed by a spirit who had none reached, unobserved, the summit. Be- of the usual indifference to decay and fore her rose, silent, darkened, and mould. And yet the beds had evidently motionless, the object of her search. I never been slept in, the very springs of

The door opened instantly to her impulsive knock, and the Fool of Five Forks stood before her. Miss Milly had never before seen the man designated by this infelicitous title, and as he stepped backward in half courtesy and half astonishment she was for the moment disconcerted. He was tall, finely-formed, and dark-bearded. Above cheeks a little hollowed by care and ill health shone a pair of hazel eyes, very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad and mournful. This was certainly not the kind of man Miss Milly had expected to see, yet after her first embarrassment had passed, the very circumstance, oddly enough, added to her indignation, and stung her wounded pride still more deeply. Nevertheless the arch hypocrite instantly changed her tactics with the swift intuition of her sex.

the chair in which she sat creaked stiffly | perienced of my sex to meet alone. She at the novelty, the closet doors opened shut down the piano, and having carewith the reluctance of fresh paint and fully reclosed all the windows and doors, varnish, and in spite of the warmth, and restored the house to its former descleanliness, and cheerfulness of furniture olate condition, she stepped from the and decoration, there was none of the verandah and proceeded directly to the ease of tenancy and occupation. As Miss cabin of the unintellectual Hawkins, that Milly afterwards confessed, she longed reared its adobe chimney above the umto "tumble things around," and when she brage a quarter of a mile below. reached the parlour or drawing-room again, she could hardly resist the desire. Particularly was she tempted by a closed piano, that stood mutely against the wall. She thought she would open it just to see who was the maker. That done it would be no harm to try its tone. She did so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. But Miss Milly was too good a player, and too enthusiastic a musician to stop at half measures. She tried it again this time so sincerely that the whole house seemed to spring into voice. Then she stopped and listened. There was no response the empty rooms seemed to have relapsed into their old stillness. She stepped out on the verandah — a woodpecker recommenced his tapping on an adjacent tree, the rattle of a cart in the rocky gulch below the hill came faintly up. No one was to be seen far or near. Miss Milly, reassured, returned. She again ran her fingers over the keys -stopped, caught at a melody running in her mind, half played it, and then threw away all caution. Before five minutes had elapsed she had entirely forgotten herself, and with her linen duster thrown aside, her straw hat flung on the piano, her white hands bared, and a black loop of her braided hair hanging upon her shoulder, was fairly embarked upon a flowing sea of musical recollection.

"I have come." she said with a dazzling smile, infinitely more dangerous than her former dignified severity, “I have come to ask your pardon for a great liberty I have just taken. I believe the new house above us on the hill is yours. I was so much pleased with its exterior that I left my friends for a moment below here," she continued artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, as if indicating a band of fearless Amazons without, and waiting to avenge any possible insult offered to one of their number, "and ventured to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had been told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit down and amuse myself for a few moments at the piano while waiting for my friends."

She had played perhaps half an hour, when, having just finished an elaborate symphony and resting her hands on the keys, she heard very distinctly and unmistakably the sound of applause from without. In an instant the fires of shame Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to and indignation leaped into her cheeks, hers. He saw a very pretty girl, with and she rose from the instrument and frank, grey eyes glistening with exciteran to the window only in time to catchment, with two red, slightly freckled sight of a dozen figures in blue and red flannel shirts vanishing hurriedly through the trees below.

cheeks glowing a little under his eyes,
with a short scarlet upper lip turned back,
like a rose leaf, over a little line of white
teeth, as she breathed somewhat hur-
riedly in her nervous excitement.
saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for
the natural uneasiness of a shy, reticent
man, I fear without a quickening of his
pulse.

He

Miss Milly's mind was instantly made up. I think I have already intimated that under the stimulus of excitement she was not wanting in courage, and as she quietly resumed her gloves, hat, and duster, she was not perhaps exactly the young person that it would be entirely "I knowed it," he said, simply. "I safe for the timid, embarrassed, or inex-heer'd ye as I kem up."

Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his coolness, and still more at the suspicion that he was an active member of her invisible claque.

"Ah," she said, still smiling, "then I think I heard you

"I reckon not," he interrupted gravely. "I didn't stay long. I found the boys hanging round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in and kinder warn you, but they promised to keep still, and you looked so comfortable and wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to disturb you, and kem away. I hope," he added, earnestly, "they didn't let on ez they heerd you. The ain't a bad lot them Blazin' Star boys - though they're a little hard at times. But they'd no more hurt ye then they would a—a— a cat!" continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with a faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile.

Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would condone her trespass in the eyes of the world. She might meet some of her invisible admirers or even her companions and, with all her erratic impulses, she was nevertheless a woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict of conventionality. She smiled sweetly and assented, and in another moment the two were lost in the shadows of the wood.

Like many other apparently trivial acts in an uneventful life, it was decisive. As she expected, she met two or three of her late applauders, whom she fancied looked sheepish and embarrassed; she met also her companions looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared astonished at her escort, and she fancied, a trifle envious of her evident success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their anxious inquiries, did not state entirely the truth, "No! no!" said Miss Milly, feeling but, without actual assertion, led them suddenly very angry with herself, the to believe that she had at a very early Fool, and the entire male population of stage of the proceeding completely subFive Forks. "No! I have behaved fool-jugated this weak-minded giant, and had ishly, I suppose -and if they had it brought him triumphantly to her feet. would have served me right. But I only From telling this story two or three wanted to apologize to you. You will times she got finally to believing that she find everything as you left it. Good had some foundation for it; then to a day!" vague sort of desire that it would eventuShe turned to go. Mr. Hawkins be-ally prove to be true, and then to an equally gan to feel embarrassed. "I'd have vague yearning to hasten that consumasked ye to sit down," he said, finally,mation. That it would redound to any "if it hed been a place fit for a lady. I satisfaction of the Fool she did not stop oughter done so eny way. I don't know what kept me from it. But I ain't well, miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager - it's the ditches, I think, miss — and I don't seem to hev my wits about me." Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy - her quick woman's heart was touched. "Can I can anything be done?" The criticism of Five Forks was as the she asked, more timidly than she had be-reader may imagine, swift and conclusive. fore spoken. When it was found out that Miss Arnot "No! not onless ye remember suth-was not the Hag masquerading as a in' about these pills." He exhibited a young and pretty girl, to the ultimate debox containing about half a dozen. "Iception of Five Forks in general and the forget the direction I don't seem to remember much, any way, these times they're Jones's Vegetable Compound. If ye've ever took 'em ye'll remember whether the reg'lar dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But perhaps ye never tuk any," he added, deprecatingly.

--

"No," said Milly, curtly. She had usually a keen sense of the ludicrous, but somehow Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her.

"Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill?" he said again, after another embarrassing pause.

to doubt. That it would cure him of his folly she was quite confident. Indeed, there are very few of us - men or women

who do not believe that even a hopeless love for ourselves is more conducive to the salvation of the lover than a requited affection for another.

Fool in particular, it was at once decided that nothing but the speedy union of the Fool and the "pretty schoolmarm" was consistent with ordinary common sense. The singular good fortune of Hawkins. was quite in accordance with the theory of his luck as propounded by the camp. That after the Hag failed to make her appearance he should "strike a lead" in his own house, without the trouble of "prospectin'," seemed to these casuists as a wonderful but inevitable law. To add to these fateful probabilities, Miss Arnot fell and sprained her ankle in the

ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was con-kins," they explained, “to let that there fined for some weeks to the hotel after gal go back to San Francisco and say her companions had departed. During that when she was sick and alone, the this period Hawkins was civilly but gro- only man in Five Forks under whose tesquely attentive. When, after a rea- roof she had rested, and at whose table sonable time had elapsed, there still ap- she had sat "this was considered a peared to be no immediate prospect of natural but pardonable exaggeration of the occupancy of the new house, public rhetoric-"ever threw off on her; and opinion experienced a singular change in it sha'n't he done. It ain't the square regard to its theories of Mr. Hawkins's thing to Five Forks." And then the conduct. The Hag was looked upon as Fool would rush away to the valley, and a saint-like and long-suffering martyr to be received by Miss Milly with a certain the weaknesses and inconsistency of the reserve of manner that finally disapFool. That, after erecting this new peared in a flush of colour, some inhouse at her request, he had suddenly creased vivacity, and a pardonable co66 gone back" on her; that his celibacy quetry. And so the days passed; Miss was the result of a long habit of weak Milly grew better in health and more proposal and subsequent shameless re- troubled in mind, and Mr. Hawkins bejection, and that he was now trying his came more and more embarrassed, and hand on the helpless schoolmarm, was Five Forks smiled and rubbed its hands perfectly plain to Five Forks. That he and waited for the approaching dénoûshould be frustrated in his attempts at ment. And then it came. But not perany cost was equally plain. Miss Milly haps in the manner that Five Forks had suddenly found herself invested with a imagined. rude chivalry that would have been amus- It was a lovely afternoon in July that ing had it not been at times embarrass- a party of Eastern tourists rode into Five ing that would have been impertinent Forks. They had just "done" the "Valbut for the almost superstitious respect ley of Big Things," and there being one or with which it was proffered. Every day two Eastern capitalists among the party, somebody from Five Forks rode out to it was deemed advisable that a proper inquire the health of the fair patient. knowledge of the practical mining re"Hez Hawkins bin over yer to-day? sources of California should be added to queried Tom Flynn, with artful ease and their experience of the merely pictuindifference, as he leaned over Miss Mil-resque in nature. Thus far everything ly's easy chair on the verandah. Miss had been satisfactory; the amount of Milly, with a faint pink flush on her water which passed over the fall was cheek, was constrained to answer, "No." large, owing to a backward season; "Well, he sorter sprained his foot agin some snow still remained in the cañons a rock, yesterday," continued Flynn, with near the highest peaks; they had ridden shameless untruthfulness. "You mus'n't round one of the biggest trees, and think anything o' that, Miss Arnot. He'll through the prostrate trunk of another. be over yer to-morrer, and meantime he To say that they were delighted is to extold me to hand this yer bookay with his press feebly the enthusiasm of these re-gards, and this yer specimen!" And ladies and gentlemen, drunk with the Mr. Flynn laid down the flowers he had champagny hospitality of their entertainpicked en route against such an emer- ers, the utter novelty of scene, and the gency, and presented respectfully a piece of quartz and gold which he had taken that morning from his own sluice-box. "You mus'n't mind Hawkins's ways, Miss Milly," said another sympathizing miner. There ain't a better man in camp than that theer Cy Hawkins! but he don't understand the ways o' the world with wimen. He hasn't mixed as much with society as the rest of us," he added, with an elaborate Chesterfieldian Letters to this effect were sent from ease of manner; "but he means well." San Francisco by prominent capitalists Meanwhile a few other sympathetic tun- there, and under the able superintendnel-men were impressing upon Mr. Haw- ence of one of their agents, the visitors kins the necessity of the greatest atten- were taken in hand, shown "what was to tion to the invalid. "It won't do, Haw- 'be seen," carefully restrained from ob

66

dry, exhilarating air of the valley. One or two had already expressed themselves ready to live and die there; another had written a glowing account to the Eastern press, depreciating all other scenery in Europe and America; and under these circumstances it was reasonably expected that Five Forks would do its duty, and equally impress the stranger after its own fashion.

425

But the lively lady was already gone. With staring black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with hands and feet that sought to batter and break down the thick darkness, with incoherent cries and supplications, following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran, and ran swiftly! Ran over treacherous foundations, ran by yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries and arches, ran wildly, ran despairingly, ran blindly, and at last ran into the arms of the Fool of Five Forks.

serving what ought not to be visible, and had been a 'cave'-the gentleman was so kept in a blissful and enthusiastic caught and buried below his shoulders. condition. And so the graveyard of Five It was all right-they'd get him out in a Forks, in which but two of the occupants moment-only it required great care to had died natural deaths, the dreary, rag-keep from extending the cave.' Didn't ged cabins on the hillsides, with their know his name it was that little man sad-eyed, cynical, broken-spirited occu- the husband of that lively lady with the pants, toiling on, day by day, for a miser- black eyes. Eh! Hullo there! Stop able pittance and a fare that a self- her. For God's sake!not that way! respecting Eastern mechanic would have She'll fall from that shaft. She'll be scornfully rejected, were not a part of the killed!" Eastern visitors' recollection. But the hoisting-works and machinery of the Blazing Star Tunnel Company were the Blazing Star Tunnel Company, whose "gentlemanly superintendent" had received private information from San Francisco to do the "proper thing" for the party. Wherefore the valuable heaps of ore in the company's works were shown, the oblong bars of gold-ready for shipment were playfully offered to the ladies who could lift and carry them away unaided, and even the tunnel itself, gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as part of the experience; and, in the noble language of one correspondent, "the wealth of Five Forks and the peculiar inducements that it offered to Eastern capitalist, were established beyond a doubt." And then occurred a little incident which, as an unbiassed spectator, I am free to say offered no inducements to anybody whatever, but which, for its bearing upon the central figure of this veracious chronicle, I cannot pass

over.

In an instant she caught at his hand. "Oh, save him!" she cried; “ you belong here - you know this dreadful place; bring me to him. Tell me where to go and what to do, I implore you! Quick, he is dying. Come!"

He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a sudden cry, dropped the rope and crowbar he was carrying, and reeled against the wall.

"Annie!" he gasped, slowly, "is it you?"

She caught at both his hands, brought her face to his with staring eyes, murmured, "Good God, Cyrus!" and sank upon her knees before him.

He tried to disengage the hand that. she wrung with passionate entreaty.

"No, no! Cyrus, you will forgive me -you will forget the past! God has sent you here to-day. You will come with me. You will-you must- -save him!"

It had become apparent to one or two more practical and sober-minded in the party that certain portions of the Blazing Star Tunnel-owing, perhaps, to the exigencies of a flattering annual dividend were economically and imperfectly "shored" and supported, and were consequently unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. Nevertheless, at a time when champagne corks were popping in dark corners, and enthusiastic voices and happy laughter rang through the halflighted levels and galleries, there came a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery, and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of or-jand pitied him. ders and a dull ominous rumble. Some "I thought you knew it!" she of the visitors turned pale - one woman faltered. fainted!

"Save who?" cried Cyrus hoarsely. "My husband!"

The blow was so direct so strong and overwhelming that even through her own stronger and more selfish absorption she saw it in the face of the man,

He did not speak, but looked at her Something had happened. What? with fixed, dumb eyes. And then the "Nothing' the speaker is fluent but sound of distant voices and hurrying feet uneasy one of the gentlemen in try-started her again into passionate life. ing to dislodge a 'specimen' from the She once more caught his hand.

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wall had knocked away a support. There "O Cyrus! hear me! If you have