 Part four of an episode of Fiddletown. From Selected Stories by Bret Hart. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Jeff Cowgill. Selected Stories by Bret Hart. An episode of Fiddletown. Part four. Meantime, Mr. Jack Prince, the name given on the card, and various letters and credentials submitted to the Reverend Mr. Crammer, paced the somewhat severe apartment known publicly as the reception parlor and privately to the pupils as purgatory. His keen eyes had taken in the various rigid details from the flat steam radiator like an enormous Japaned soda cracker that heated one end of the room to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer that hopelessly chilled the other. From the Lord's Prayer, executed by a former writing master in such gratuitous variety of elegant caligraphic trifling as to abate considerably the serious value of the composition, to three views of Genoa from the Institute, which nobody ever recognized, taken on the spot by the drawing teacher. From two illuminated texts of Scripture in an English letter, so gratuitously and hideously remote as to chill all human interest, to a large photograph of the senior class, in which the prettiest girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat apparently on each other's heads and shoulders. His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of school catalogs, the sermons of Dr. Crammer, the poems of Henry Kirk White, the lays of the sanctuary, and lives of celebrated women. His fancy, and it was a nervously active one, had gone over the partings and greetings that must have taken place here, and wondered why the apartment had yet caught so little of the flavor of humanity. Indeed I'm afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his visit when the door opened and Kerry Tretherick stood before him. It was one of those faces he had seen the night before, prettier even than it had seemed then, and yet I think he was conscious of some disappointment without knowing exactly why. Her abundant waving hair was of a guinea golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed and deep water. It was certainly not her beauty that disappointed him. Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression, Kerry was on her part quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw before her one of those men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as nice, that is to say, correct in all the superficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and features. Yet there was a decidedly unconventional quality about him. He was totally unlike anything or anybody that she could remember. And as the attributes of originality are often as apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not entirely pre-possessed in his favor. I can hardly hope, he began pleasantly, that you remember me. It is eleven years ago, and you were a very young girl. I'm afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed that familiarity that might exist between a child of six and a young man of twenty-one. I don't think I was fond of children. But I knew your mother very well. I was editor of the avalanche in Fiddletown when she took you to San Francisco. You mean my stepmother? She wasn't my mother, you know, interposed to Kerry hastily. Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. I mean, your stepmother, he said gravely. I never had the pleasure of meeting your mother. No, mother hasn't been in California these twelve years. There was an intentional emphasizing of the title and of its distinction that began to interest coldly Prince after his first astonishment was passed. As I come from your stepmother now, he went on with a slight laugh, I must ask you to go back for a few moments to that point. After your father's death, your mother, I mean your stepmother, recognized the fact that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, was legally and morally your guardian, and, although much against her inclination and affections, placed you again in her charge. My stepmother married again within a month after my father died and sent me home, said Kerry with great directness and the faintest toss of her head. Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly and apparently so sympathetically that Kerry began to like him. With no other notice of the interruption, he went on. After your stepmother had performed this act of simple justice, she entered into an agreement with your mother to defray the expenses of your education until your eighteenth year when you were to elect and choose which of the two should thereafter be your guardian and with whom you would make your home. This agreement I think you are already aware of and I believe knew at the time. I was a mere child then, said Kerry, or certainly said Mr. Prince with the same smile. Still, the conditions I think have never been oppressive to you nor your mother and the only time they are likely to give you the least uneasiness will be when you come to make up your mind in the choice of your guardian. That will be on your eighteenth birthday, the twentieth, I think, of the present month. Kerry was silent. Pray, do not think that I am here to receive your decision even if it be already made. I only wish to inform you that your stepmother, Mrs. Starbottle, will be in town tomorrow and will pass a few days at the hotel. If it is your wish to see her before you make up your mind she will be glad to meet you. She does not, however, wish to do anything to influence your judgment. Does mother know she's coming? said Kerry hastily. I do not know, said Prince Gravely. I only know that if you conclude to see Mrs. Starbottle it will be with your mother's permission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep, sacredly, this part of the agreement made ten years ago. But her health is very poor and the change and country quiet of a few days may benefit her. Mr. Prince bent his keen bright eyes upon the young girl and almost held his breath until she spoke again. Mother's coming up today or tomorrow. She said looking up. Said Mr. Prince with a sweet and language smile. Is Colonel Starbottle here too? asked Kerry after a pause. Colonel Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother is again a widow. Dead? repeated Kerry. Yes, replied Mr. Prince. Your stepmother has been singularly unfortunate in surviving her affections. Kerry did not know what he meant and looked so. Mr. Prince smiled reassuringly. Presently Kerry began to whimper. Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair. I'm afraid he said with a very peculiar light in his eye and a singular dropping of the corners of his mustache I'm afraid you are taking this too deeply. It will be some days before you are called upon to make a decision. Let us talk of something else. I hope you caught no cold last evening. Kerry's face shone out again in dimples. You must have thought us so queer. It was too bad to give you so much trouble. None, whatever I assure you. My sense of propriety, he added to mureling which might have been outraged that I've been called upon to help three young ladies out of a school room window at night was deeply gratified at being able to assist them in again. The doorbell rang loudly and Mr. Prince rose. Take your own time and think well before you make your decision. But Kerry's ear and attention were given to the sound of voices in the hall. At the same moment the door was thrown open and a servant announced, Mrs. Tretherick and Mr. Robinson. The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at all as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of the town and drove toward his hotel. He was wearied and cynical. A drive of a dozen miles through unpicturesque outlying villages past small economic farmhouses and hideous villas that violated his fastidious taste had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious state of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn landlord as he drove up to the door, but that functionary way laid him on the steps. There's a lady in the sitting room waiting for you. Mr. Prince hurried upstairs and entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle flew toward him. She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure was wasted to half its size. The beautiful curves of her bust and shoulders were broken or inverted. The once full rounded arm was shrunken in its sleeve and the golden hoops that insurgled her wand wrists almost slipped from her hands as her long scant fingers closed convulsively around Jack's. Her cheekbones were painted that afternoon with the hectic of fever. Somewhere in the hollows of those cheeks were buried the dimples of long ago but their graves were forgotten. Her lustrous eyes were still beautiful, though the orbits were deeper than before. Her mouth was still sweet, although the lips parted more easily over the little teeth even in breathing and showed more of them than she was want to do before. The glory of her blonde hair was still left. It was finer, more silken and ethereal. Yet it failed even in its plenitude to the hollows of the blue-veined temples. Clare said Jack reproachfully. Oh, forgive me, Jack, she said, falling into a chair but still clinging to his hand. Forgive me, dear, but I could not wait longer. I should have died, Jack. Died before another night. Bear with me a little longer. It will not be long, but let me stay. I may not see her. I know. I shall not speak to her, but it's so sweet to feel that I'm at least near her, that I breathe the same air with my darling. I'm better already, Jack. I am indeed. And you've seen her today. How did she look? What did she say? Tell me all, everything, Jack. Was she beautiful? They say she is. Has she grown? Would you have known her again? Will she come, Jack? Well, perhaps she has been here already, perhaps. She had risen with tremulous excitement just glancing at the door. Perhaps she is here now. Why don't you speak, Jack? Tell me all. The keen eyes that looked down into hers were glistening with an infinite tenderness that none, perhaps, but she would have deemed them capable of. Clara, he said gently and cheerily, try and compose yourself. You are trembling now with the fatigue and excitement of your journey. I have seen, Kerry, she is well and beautiful. Let that suffice you now. His gentle firmness composed and calmed her now as it had often done before. Stroking her thin hand, he said after a pause, did Kerry ever write to you? Twice. Thanking me for some presents. They were only schoolgirl letters. She added nervously answering the interrogation of his eyes. Did she ever know of your own troubles, of your poverty, of the sacrifices you made to pay her bills, of your pawning, your clothes and jewels, of your— No! No! interrupted the woman quickly. No! How could she? I have no enemy cruel enough to tell her that. But if she—or if Mrs. Streatherick had heard of it, if Kerry thought you were poor and unable to support her properly, it might influence her decision. Young girls are fond of the position that wealth can give. She may have rich friends, maybe a lover. Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence. But, she said eagerly grasping Jack's hand, when you found me sick and helpless at Sacramento, when you—oh, God bless you for it, Jack— offered to help me to the east, you said you knew of something, you had some plan that would make me and Kerry independent. Yes, said Jack hastily, but I want you to get strong and well first. And now that you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to the school. It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded to describe the interview already recorded, with a singular felicity and discretion that shames my own account of that proceeding. Without suppressing a single fact without omitting a word or detail, he yet managed to throw a poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest the heroine with a romantic rosy atmosphere, which, though not perhaps entirely imaginary, still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten years ago had made the columns of the Fiddletown avalanche at once fascinating and instructive. It was not until he saw the heightened color and heard the quick breathing of his eager listener that he felt a pang of self-reproach. God help her and forgive me, he muttered between his clenched teeth, but how can I tell her all now? That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary head upon her pillow, she tried to picture to herself Carrie at the same moment, sleeping peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill, and it was a rare comfort to this yearning, foolish woman to know that she was so near. But at this moment Carrie was sitting on the edge of her bed, half undressed, pouting her pretty lips and twisting her long Leonine locks between her fingers as Miss Kate Van Corleer dramatically wrapped in a long white counterpane, her black eyes sparkling and her thoroughbred nose, thrown high in air, stood over her like a wrathful and indignant ghost. For Carrie had that evening imparted her woes and her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady had proved herself no friend by falling into a state of fire indignation over Carrie's ingratitude, and openly and shamelessly espousing the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. Why, if the half you tell me is true, your mother and those robinsons are making of you not only a little coward, but a little snob, Miss, respectability for sooth. Look you, my family are centuries before the Tretherics, but if my family had ever treated me in this way and then asked me to turn my back on my best friend, I whistled them down the wind and here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows and glared around the room as if in search of a re-creant van Corleer. You just talk this way because you have taken a fancy to that, Mr. Prince," said Carrie. In the debasing slang of the period that had even found its way into the virgin coisters of the Cramer Institute, Miss Kate, as she afterward expressed it, instantly went for her. First with the shake of her head, she threw her long black hair over one shoulder, then dropping one end of the counterpane like a vestal tunic. She stepped before Carrie with a purposely exaggerated classic stride. And what if I have, Miss, what if I happen to know a gentleman when I see him? What if I happen to know that among a thousand such traditional, conventional, feeble editions of their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you cannot find one original, independent, individualized gentleman like your Prince. Go to bed, Miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be your Prince, indeed. Ask to have a contrite and graceful heart, and thank the Lord in particular for having sent you such a friend as Kate Van Corleer. Yet after an imposing dramatic exit, she reappeared the next moment as a straight white flash, kissed Carrie between the brows, and was gone. The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. He was convinced in his mind that Carrie would not come. Yet to keep this consciousness from Mrs. Starbottle to meet her simple hopefulness with an equal degree of apparent faith was a hard and difficult task. He would have tried to divert her mind by taking her on a long drive, but she was fearful that Carrie might come during her absence, and her strength he was obliged to admit had failed greatly. As he looked into her large and awe-inspiring clear eyes, a something he tried to keep from his mind, to put off day by day from contemplation, kept asserting itself directly to his inner consciousness. He began to doubt the expediency of his management. He recalled every incident of his interview with Carrie, and half believed that its failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle was very patient and confident. Her very confidence shook his faith in his own judgment. When her strength was equal to the exertion she was propped up in her chair by the window where she could see the school and the entrance to the hotel. In the intervals she would elaborate pleasant plans for the future taking a strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the present location. But it was notable that the future, always thus outlined, was one of quiet and repose. She believed she would get well soon. In fact, she thought she was now much better than she had been. But it might be long before she should be quite strong again. She would whisper on in this way until Jack would dash madly down into the bar-room, order liquors that he did not drink, light cigars talk with men that he did not listen to and behave generally as our stronger sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and perplexity. The day closed with a clouded sky and a bitter searching wind. With the night fell a few wandering flakes of snow. She was still content and hopeful. And as Jack wheeled her from the window to the fire she explained to him how that as the school term was drawing near its close Kerry was probably kept closely at her lessons during the day and could only leave the school at night. So she sat up the greater part of the evening and combed her silken hair and, as far as her strength would allow, made an undressed toilette to receive her guest. We must not frighten the child, Jack, she said apologetically and with something of her old coquetry. It was with a feeling of relief that at ten o'clock Jack received a message from the landlord saying that the doctor would like to see him for a moment downstairs. As Jack entered the grim, dimly lighted parlor he observed the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He was about to withdraw again when a voice that he remembered very pleasantly said, Oh, it's all right, I'm the doctor. The hood was thrown back and Prince saw the shining black hair and black audacious eyes of Kate Van Corleur. Don't ask any questions, I'm the doctor and there's my prescription. And she pointed to the half frightened, half sobbing Carrie in the corner to be taken at once. Then Mrs. Trethric has given her permission. Not much, if I know the sentiments of that lady, said Kate Sossily. Then how did you get away? asked Prince gravely. By the window. When Mr. Prince had left Carrie in the arms of her stepmother he returned to the parlor. Well, demanded Kate, she will stay. You will, I hope also, to-night. As I shall not be eighteen and my own mistress on the twentieth and as I haven't a sixth stepmother I won't. Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing you safely through the window again. When Mr. Prince returned an hour later he found Carrie sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Darbottle's feet. Her head was in her stepmother's lap and she had sobbed herself to sleep. Mrs. Darbottle put her finger to her lip. I told you she would come. God bless you, Jack, and good night. The next morning Mrs. Trethric, indignant, the Reverend Asa Cramer, principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Robinson Sr., complacently respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was a stormy meeting ending in a demand for Carrie. We certainly cannot admit of this interference, said Mrs. Trethric, a fashionably dressed, indistinctive-looking woman. It is several days before the expiration of our agreement and we do not feel, under the circumstances, justified in releasing Mrs. Darbottle from its conditions. Until the expiration of the school term we must consider Mrs. Trethric as complying entirely with its rules and discipline, imposed Dr. Cramer. The whole proceeding is calculated to injure the prospects and compromise the position of Mrs. Trethric in society, suggested Mr. Robinson. In vain, Mr. Prince urged the failing condition of Mrs. Darbottle, her absolute freedom from complicity with Carrie's flight, the pardonable and natural instincts of the girl and his own assurance that they were willing to abide by her decision. And then, with a rising color and a dangerous look in his eye but a singular calmness in his speech, he added one more word. It becomes my duty to inform you of a circumstance which would certainly justify me as the executor of the late Mr. Trethric in fully resisting your demands. A few months after Mr. Trethric's death through the agency of a Chinaman in his employment it was discovered that he had made a will which was subsequently found in his papers. The insignificant value of his bequest, mostly land, then quite valueless, prevented his executors from carrying out his wishes or from even proving the will or making it otherwise publicly known until within the last two or three years when the property had enormously increased in value. The provisions of that bequest are simple but unmistakable. The property is divided between Carrie and her stepmother with the explicit condition that Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guardian, provide for her education and in all details stand to her in loco parentis. Oh, what is the value of this bequest? asked Mr. Robinson. I cannot tell exactly, but not far from half a million, I should say. She is a learned prince. Certainly, with this knowledge as a friend of Mrs. Tretherick, I must say that her conduct is as judicious as it is honourable to her, responded Mr. Robinson. I shall not presume to question the wishes or throw any obstacles in the way of carrying out the intentions of my dead husband. Added Mrs. Tretherick and the interview was closed. When its result was made known to Mrs. Starbottle she raised Jack's hand to her feverish lips. It cannot add to my happiness now, Jack, but tell me, why did you keep it from her? Jack smiled but did not reply. Within the next week the necessary legal formalities were concluded and Carrie was restored to her stepmother. At Mrs. Starbottle's request a small house in the outskirts of the town was procured and thither they removed to wait the spring and Mrs. Starbottle's convalescence. Both came tardily that year. Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond of watching the budding of the trees beyond her window, a novel sight to her Californian experience and of asking Carrie their names and seasons. Even at this time she projected for that summer which seemed to her so mysteriously withheld long walks with Carrie through the leafy woods whose gray, misty ranks she could see along the hilltop. She even thought she could write poetry about them and recall the fact as evidence of her gaining strength and there is, I believe, still treasured by one of the members of this little household a little carol so joyous so simple and so innocent that it might have been the robin that called to her from the window as perhaps it was and then without warning there dropped from heaven a day so tender so mystically soft so dreamily beautiful so throbbing and alive with the fluttering of invisible wings so replete and bountiously overflowing with an awakening and joyous resurrection not taught by man or limited by creed that they thought it fit to bring her out and lay her in that glorious sunshine that sprinkles like the droppings of a bridal torch the happy lintels and doors and there she lay beautified and calm wearied by watching Carrie had fallen asleep by her side and Mrs. Starbottle's thin fingers lay like a benediction on her head presently she called Jack to her side who was that she whispered she just came in Miss Van Corleer said Jack answering to look in her great hollow eyes Jack she said after a moment's silence sit by me a moment dear Jack have something I must say if I ever seemed hard or cold or coquettish to you in the old days it was because I loved you Jack too well to mar your future by linking it with my own I always loved you dear Jack even when I seemed least worthy of you that is gone now but I had a dream lately Jack a foolish woman's dream that you might find what I lacked in her and she glanced lovingly at the sleeping girl at her side that you might love her as you have loved me but even that is not to be Jack is it and she glanced wistfully in his face Jack pressed her hand but did not speak after a few moments silence she again said perhaps you are right in your choice she's a good hearted girl Jack but a little bold and with this last flicker of foolish weak humanity in her struggling spirit she spoke no more when they came to her a moment later that it lit upon her breast flew away and the hand that they lifted from Carrie's head fell lifeless at her side end of an episode of Fiddletown Barker's Luck in Selected Stories by Bret Hart this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jeff Cowgill Selected Stories by Bret Hart Barker's Luck a bird twittered the morning sun shining through the open window was apparently more potent than the cool mountain air which had only caused the sleeper to curl a little more tightly in his blankets Barker's eyes opened instantly upon the light and the bird on the window ledge like all healthy young animals he would have tried to sleep again but with his momentary consciousness came the recollection that it was his turn to cook the breakfast that morning and he regretfully rolled out of his bunk to the floor without stopping to dress he opened the door and stepped outside secure in the knowledge that he was overlooked only by the Sierras and plunged his head and shoulders in the bucket of cold water that stood by the door then he began to clothe himself partly in the cabin and partly in the open air with a lapse between the putting on of his trousers and coat which he employed in bringing in wood raking together the few embers on the adobe hearth not without a prudent regard to the rattlesnake which had once been detected in haunting the warm ashes he began to prepare breakfast but this time the other sleepers his partner Stacy and Demerist young men of about his own age were awake, alert, and lazily critical of his progress I don't care about my quail on toast being underdone for breakfast said Stacy with Eon and you needn't serve with red wine I'm not feeling very peckish this morning and I reckon you can knock off the fried oysters after the Spanish mackerel for me said Demerist gravely the fact is that last bottle of Hoove Clicquot we had for supper wasn't as dry as I am this morning accustomed to these regular barmaside suggestions Barker made no direct reply presently looking up from the fire he said there's no more salaritas so you mustn't blame me if the biscuit is extra heavy I told you we had none when you went to the grocery yesterday and I told you we hadn't a red scent to buy any with said Stacy who was also treasurer put these two negatives together and you make the affirmative, salaritas mix freely and bake in a hot oven nevertheless after a toilette as primitive as Barker's they sat down to what he had prepared with the keen appetite begotten of the mountain air and the regretful fastidiousness born of the recollection of better things jerked beef frizzled with salt pork in a frying pan boiled potatoes, biscuit, and coffee composed the repast the biscuit however, proving remarkably heavy after the first mouthful, were used as missiles thrown through the open door at an empty bottle which had previously served as a mark for revolver practice and a few moments later pipes were lit to counteract the effects of the meal and take the taste out of their mouths suddenly they heard the sound of horses' hoofs saw the quick passage of a rider in the open space before the cabin and felt the smart impact upon the table of some small object thrown by him it was the regular morning delivery of the county newspaper well he's getting to be a madish, your shot said Demrus approvingly looking at his upset can of coffee as he picked up the paper rolled into a cylindrical wad as tightly as a cartridge and began to straighten it out this was no easy matter as the sheet had evidently been rolled while yet damp from the press but Demrus eventually opened it and ensconced himself behind it nary news asked Stacy no there never is any said Demrus scornfully we ought to stop the paper well you mean the paper man ought to we don't pay him said Barker gently well that's the same thing Smarty no news no pay hello he continued his eyes suddenly riveted on the paper then after the fashion of ordinary humanity he stopped short and read the interesting item to himself when he finished he brought his fist and the paper together violently down upon the table now look at this talk of luck will ya just think of it here are we hard working men with lots of save too grubbin away on this hillside like niggers glad to get enough at the end of the day to pay for our soggy biscuits and horse bean coffee and just look what falls into the lap of some lazy sneaking greenhorn who never did a stroke of work in his life now here are we with no foolishness no irs nor graces and yet men who would do credit to twice the amount of luck and seem born to it too and we're set aside for some long lank pen wiping scrub who just knows enough to sit down on his office stool and hold on to a bit of paper well what's up now asked Stacy with the carelessness begotten of familiarity with his partner's extravagance listen said Demrus reading another unprecedented rise has taken place in the shares of the Yellow Hammer first extension mine since the sinking of the new shaft it was quoted yesterday at ten thousand dollars a foot when it is remembered that scarcely two years ago the original shares issued it fifty dollars per share it dropped to only fifty cents a share it'll be seen that those who were able to hold on have got a good thing what mine did you say Barker looking up meditatively from the dishes he was already washing the Yellow Hammer first extension returned Demrus shortly I used to have some shares in that I think I have them still said Barker musingly oh yes said Demrus promptly the paper speaks of it here oh we understand he continued reading aloud that our eminent fellow citizen George Barker otherwise known as Get Left Barker and Chucklehead is one of these fortunate individuals no said Barker with a slight flush of innocent pleasure it can't say that how could it know Stacey laughed but Demrus coolly continued oh you didn't hear all listen we say was one of them but haven't already sold his apparently useless certificates to our popular druggist Jones for corn plasters that are reduced right he's unable to realize you may laugh boys said Barker with simple seriousness I really believe I have got them yet just wait I'll see he rose and began to drag out a well-worn police from under his bunk well you see he continued they were given to me by an old chap in return for saving his life by delaying the stocked in boat that afterward blew up returned Demrus briefly we know it all his hair was white and his hand trembled slightly as he laid those shares in yours saying and you never forgot the words take them young man and for lending him two thousand dollars and continued Barker with a simple ignoring of the interruption as he quietly brought out the police two thousand dollars repeated Stacey when did you have two thousand dollars when I first left Sacramento three years ago said Barker unstrapping the police how long did you have it said Demrus incredulously well at least two days I think returned Barker quietly then I met that man I lent him my pile and took those shares he died afterward well of course he did said Demrus severely they always do nothing kills a man more quickly than an action of that kind nevertheless the two Parkers regarded Barker rummaging among some loose clothes and papers with a kind of paternal toleration well if you can't find him bring out your government bonds suggested Stacey at that moment flushed in triumphant Barker rose from his knees and came toward them carrying some papers in his hands Demrus'd seized them from him opened them spread them on the table examined hurriedly the date signatures and transfers glanced again quickly at the newspaper paragraph looked wildly at Stacey and then at Barker and gasped by the living hook it is so fuck how she has got him echoed Stacey twenty shares continued Demrus breathlessly $10,000 a share well even if it is only a foot it's $200,000 Jerusalem tell me fair sir said Stacey with sparkling eyes has still left in yonder casket any rare jewels, rubies, sarsenette or lengths of fine gold per venture a pearl or two may have been overlooked no that's all returned Barker simply well you hear him Rothschild says that's all Prince Esther Hayes he says he has another red scent only $200,000 what ought I to do boys asked Barker timidly glancing from one to the other yet he remembered with delight all that day and for many a year afterward that he saw in their faces only unselfish joy and affection at that supreme moment do said Demrus promptly well stand on your head and yell no stop come here he sees both Barker and Stacey by the hand and ran out into the open air here they danced violently with clasped hands around a small buckeye in perfect silence and then returned to the cabin grave but perspiring of course said Barker wiping his forehead we'll just get some money on these certificates and buy up that next claim which belongs to old Carter where you know we thought we saw the indication we'll do nothing of the kind said Demrus decidedly that money ain't in it that money is yours old chap I ever sent of it property acquired before marriage you know and the only thing we'll do is to be damned before we'll see you drop a dime of it into this God forsaken hole no but we're partners gas Barker not in this the utmost we can do for you opulent sir though it ill becomes us horn-handed sons of toil to rub shoulders pertanced to dine with you to take a pasty and a glass of malwaise at some restaurant in Sacramento when you've got things fixed in honor of your return to affluence but more would ill become us but what are you gonna do said Barker with a half hysteric half frightened smile well we have not yet looked through our luggage said Demrus with invincible gravity and there's a secret recess a double fond to my apartment toe known only to a trusty page which has not been disturbed since I left my ancestral home in Virginia there may be a few first debentures of Erie or what not still there well I felt some strange dislike protuberances in my dress suit the other day but be like they are but poker chips said Stacy thoughtfully an uneasy feeling crept over Barker the color which had left his fresh cheeks returned to it quickly and he turned his eyes away yet he had seen nothing in his companion's eyes but affection with even a certain kind of tender commiseration that deepened his uneasiness well I suppose he said desperately after a pause I ought to go over to Boomville and make some inquiries at the bank old chap at the bank said Demrus emphatically take my advice and don't go anywhere else don't breathe a word of your luck to anybody and don't whatever you do be tempted to sell just now you don't know how high that stock is going to jump yet I thought stammered Barker that you boys might like to go over with me well we can't afford to take another holiday on grub wages and we're only two to work today said Demrus with a slight increase of color and the faintest tremor in his voice it won't do old chap for us to be seen bumming around with you on the heels of your good fortune for everybody knows we're poor and sooner or later everybody'll know you were rich even when you first came to us a nonsense said Barker indignantly gospel my boy said Demrus shortly the frozen truth old man said Stacy Barker took up his hat with some stiffness and moved toward the door here he stopped irresolutely in a resolution that seemed to communicate itself to his partners there was a moment's awkward silence and Demrus suddenly seized him by the shoulders with a grip that was half a caress and walked him rapidly to the door don't stand fooling with us Barker boy but just trot off like a little man and get your grip on that fortune when you got your hooks in it hang on like grim death you'll he hesitated for an instant only possibly to find the laugh that should you're sure to find us when you get back hurt to the quick but restraining his feelings Barker clapped his hat on his head and walked quickly away the two partners stood watching him in silence until his figure was lost in the underbrush then they spoke like him wasn't it said Demrus just him all over think of him having that stock stowed away all these years and think of his wanting to put the whole thing into this rotten hillside with us and he'd have done it by gosh and never thought of it again that's Barker dear old man good old chap I've been wondering if one of us ought to have gone with him he's just as likely to pour his money into the first lap that opens for it said Stacy the more reason why we shouldn't prevent him or seem to prevent him fiercely there'll be naves and fools enough who will try and put the idea of our using him into his simple heart without that no let him do as he likes with it but let him be himself I'd rather have him come back to us even after he's lost the money his old self and empty handed and try to change the stuff that God put into him and make him more like others the tone and manner were so different from Demers's usual levity that Stacy was silent after a pause he said well we shall miss him on the hillside won't we Demers did not reply reaching out his hand abstractedly he wrenched off a small slip from a sapling near him began slowly to pull the leaves off one by one until they were all gone then he switched it in the air struck his bootlegs smartly with it and said roughly come let's get to work and strode away meantime Barker on his way to Boomville was no less singular in his manner he kept up his slightly affected attitude until he'd lost sight of the cabin but being of a simple nature his emotions were less complex if he had not seen the undoubted look of affection in the eyes of his partners he would have imagined that they were jealous of his good fortune yet why had they refused his offer to share it with him why had they so strangely assumed that their partnership with him had closed why had they declined to go with him why had this money of which he had thought so little and for which he had cared so little changed them toward him it had not changed him he was the same he remembered how they had often talked and laughed over a prospective strike and mining and speculated what they would do together with the money and now that luck had occurred to one of them individually the effect was only to alienate them he could not make it out he was hurt wounded yet oddly enough he was conscious now of a certain power within him to hurt and wound in retribution he was rich he would let them see he could do without them he was quite free now to think only of himself and Kitty for it must be recorded that with all this young gentleman's simplicity and unselfishness with all his loyal attitude to his partners his first thought at the moment he grasped the fact of his wealth was of a young lady it was Kitty Carter the daughter of the hotelkeeper at Boomville who owned the claim that the partners had mutually coveted that a pretty girl's face should flash upon him with his conviction that this young man meant perhaps no disloyalty to his partners whom he would still have helped but it occurred to him now in his half hurt, half vengeful state that they had often joked him about Kitty and perhaps further confidence with them was debarred but it was only due to his dignity that he should now see Kitty at once this was easy enough for in the naive simplicity of Boomville and the economic arrangements of her father she occasionally waited upon the hotel table half the town was always actively in love with her the other half had been and was silent, cynical but hopeless in defeat for Kitty was one of those singularly pretty girls occasionally met with in southwestern frontier civilization whose distinct and original refinement of face and figure was so remarkable and original as to cast a doubt on the sagacity and prescience of one parent and the morality of the other yet no doubt with equal injustice but the fact remained that she was slight, graceful and self-contained and moved beside her stumpy commonplace father and her faded commonplace mother in the dining room of the Boomville hotel like some distinguished alien the three partners by virtue perhaps of their college education and refined manners had been exceptionally noticed by Kitty but for some occult reason the more serious perhaps because it had no obvious or logical presumption to the world generally Barker was particularly favored he quickened his pace and as the flagstaff of the Boomville hotel rose before him in the little hollow he seriously debated whether he had not better go to the bank first deposit his shares and get a small advance on them to buy a new necktie or a boiled shirt in which to present himself to Miss Kitty but remembering that he had partly his word to Demarest that he would keep his shares intact for the present he abandoned this prospect probably from the fact that his projected confidence with Kitty was already a violation of Demarest's injunctions of secrecy and his conscience was sufficiently burdened with that breach of faith but when he reached the hotel a strange trepidation overcame him the dining room was at its slack water between the ebb of breakfast and the glow of the preparation for the midday meal he cannot have his interview with Kitty in that dreary waste of reserved chairs and bare trestle-like tables and she was possibly engaged in her household duties but Miss Kitty had already seen him cross the road and had lounged into the dining room with an artfully simulated air of casually examining it at the unexpected vision of his hopes arrayed in the sweetest and freshest of rosebud-sprigged print his heart faltered then partly with the desperation of a timid man and partly through the working of a half-form resolution he met her bright smile with a simple inquiry for her father Miss Kitty bit her pretty lip smiled slightly and proceeded him with great formality to the office opening the door without raising her lashes to either her father or the visitor she said with a mischievous accenting of the professional manner to see you on business and tripped sweetly away and this slight incident precipitated the crisis for Barker instantly made up his mind that he must purchase the next claim for his partners of this man Carter and that he would be obliged to confide to him the details of his good fortune and as a proof of his sincerity and his ability to pay for it he did so bluntly Carter was a shrewd businessman and the well-known simplicity of Barker was the proof of his truthfulness to say nothing of the shares that were shown to him his selling price for his claim had been two hundred dollars but here was a rich customer who, from a mere foolish sentiment would be no doubt willing to pay more he hesitated with a bland but superior smile ah, that was by price at my last offer, Mr. Barker he said swively but you see, things are going up since then the keenest duplicity is apt to fail before absolute simplicity Barker thoroughly believing him and already a little frightened at his own presumption not for the amount of the money involved but from the possibility of his partners refusing his gift utterly quickly took advantage of this locus penitentiary well, no matter then, he said hurriedly perhaps I'd better consult my partners first in fact, he added his gratuitous truthfulness all his own I hardly know whether they'll take it off me so I think I'll wait Carter was staggered this would clearly not do he recovered himself with an insinuating smile well, you pulled me up too short, Mr. Barker I'm a business man but hang it all, what's that among friends now, if you reckoned I gave my word at two hundred white, I'm there say no more about it I'll make you out of Bill of Sale at once ah, but hesitated Barker, you see I haven't got the money yet money! echoed Carter bluntly what's that among friends give me your note at thirty days that's good enough for me and we'll settle the whole thing now nothing like finishing a job while you're about it and before the bewildered and doubtful visitor could protest he'd filled up a promissory note for Barker's signature and himself signed a bill of sale for the property and I reckon Mr. Barker you'd like to take your partners by surprise about this little gift of yours he added smilingly well, my messenger is starting for the gulch in five minutes he's going by your cabin and he can just drop this bill of sale as a kind of settled fact on them before they can say anything, see there's nothing like acting on the spot in these sort of things and don't you worry about them either you see, you sort of owe us a friendly call haven't always dropped into the hotel only as a customer so you'll stop here over luncheon and I reckon as the old woman's busy why kiddie will try to make the time pass till then by playing for you on her new piano delighted yet bewildered by the unexpected invitation and opportunity Barker mechanically signed the promissory note and as mechanically addressed the envelope of the bill of sale to Demarest which Carter gave to the messenger then he followed his host across the hall to the apartment known as Miss Kitty's Parlor he had often heard of it as a sanctum impervious to the ordinary guest whatever functions the young girl assumed at the hotel and among her father's borders was vaguely understood that she dropped them on crossing that sacred threshold and became Miss Carter the county judge had been entertained there and the wife of the bank manager Barker's admission there was consequently an unprecedented honor he cast his eyes timidly round the room redolent and suggestive in various charming little ways of the young girl's presence there was the cottage piano which had been brought up in sections on the backs of mules from the foot of the mountains there was a crayon head of Minerva done by the fair occupant at the age of twelve there was a profile of herself done by a traveling artist there were pretty little china ornaments and many flowers notably a faded but still scented woodland shrub which Barker had presented to her two weeks ago and over which Miss Kitty had discreetly thrown her white anchorchief as she entered a wave of hope passed over him at the act but it was quickly spent as Mr. Carter's roughly playful voice introduced him you can give Mr. Barker a tune or two to pass time for lunch, Kitty you can let him see what you're doing in that line but you'll have to sit up now for this young man's come into some property and will be sashaying around in Frisco for a long with a bile shirt and a stove pipe and be given the go-by to Boomville well, you young folks will excuse me for a while as I reckon I'll just title over and get the recorder to put that bill sale on record nothing like squaring things to once Mr. Barker as he slipped away Barker felt his heart sink Carter had not only bluntly forestalled him with the news and taken away his excuse for a confidential interview but had put an ostentatious construction on his visit what could she think of him now? he stood ashamed and embarrassed before her but Miss Kitty far from noticing his embarrassment and a sudden concern regarding the horrid untidiness of the room which made her cheeks quite pink in one spot and obliged her to take up and sat down in exactly the same place several articles was exceedingly delighted in fact she did not remember ever having been so pleased before in her life these things were always so unexpected just like the weather for instance it was quite cool last night and now it was just stifling and so dusty had Mr. Barker noticed the heat coming from the gulch? or perhaps being a rich man he with a dazzling smile was above walking now it was so kind of him to come here first and tell her father I really wanted to tell only you Miss Carter Stamford Barker, you see he hesitated but Miss Kitty saw perfectly he wanted to tell her and seeing her he asked for her father not that it made the slightest difference to her for her father would have been sure to have told her so kind of her father to invite him to luncheon otherwise she might not have seen him before he left Boomville but this was more than Barker could stand with the same desperate directness and simplicity with which he had approached her father he now blurred it out his whole heart to her he told her how he had loved her hopelessly from the first time that they had spoken together at the church picnic did she remember it how he had sat and worshipped her and nothing else at church how her voice in the church choir had sounded like an angels how his poverty and his uncertain future had kept him from seeing her often lest he should be tempted to betray his hopeless passion how as soon as he realized that he had a position that his love for her did not make her ridiculous to the world's eyes he came to tell her all he did not even dare to hope but she would hear him at least would she not indeed there was no getting away from his boyish simple outspoken declaration in vain Kitty smiled frowned glanced at her pink cheeks in the glass and stopped to look out of the window the room was filled with his love it was encompassing her and despite his shy attitude seemed to be almost embracing her but she managed at last to turn upon him a face that was now as white and grave as his own was eager and glowing sit down she said gently he did so obediently but wonderingly she then opened the piano and took a seat upon the music stool before it placed some loose sheets of music in the rack and ran her fingers lightly over the keys thus entrenched she let her hands fall idly in her lap and for the first time raised her eyes to his now listen to me they couldn't don't interrupt there but not so near you can hear what I have to say well enough where you are that will do Barker had halted with the chair he was dragging towards her and sat down now said Miss Kitty with drawing her eyes and looking straight before her I believe everything you say perhaps I oughtn't to at least say it but I do there but because I do believe you it seems to me all wrong for the very reason that you give for not having spoken to me before if you really felt as you say you did are the same reasons why you should not speak to me now you see all this time you have let nobody but yourself know how you felt towards me in everybody's eyes you and your partners have been only the three stuck up exclusive college red men who mind a poor claim in the Gulch and occasionally came here to this hotel as customers in everybody's eyes I have been only the rich hotel keepers popular daughter who sometimes waited upon you but nothing more but at least we were then pretty much alike and as good as each other and now as soon as you've become suddenly rich and of course the superior you rush down here to ask me to acknowledge it by accepting you well you know I never meant that Miss Kitty first out Barker vehemently but his protest was drowned in a rapid roulade from the ladies fingers on the keys he sank back in his chair of course you never meant it she said with an odd laugh but everybody will take it that way and you cannot go around to everybody in Moonville and make the pretty declaration that you have just made to me everybody will say I accepted you for your money everybody will say it with a put up job of my father's everybody will say that you threw yourself away on me and I don't know but that they would be right now sit down please or I shall play again you see she went on without looking at him just now you like to remember that you fell in love with me first as a pretty waiter girl but if I became your wife it's just what you would like to forget and I shouldn't for I should always like to think of the time when you came here you could afford it and sometimes when you couldn't just to see me and how we used to make excuses to speak with each other over the dishes you don't know what these things mean to a woman who she hesitated a moment and then added abruptly but what does that matter you would not care to be reminded of it so she said rising up with a grave smile and grasping her hands tightly behind her it's a good deal better that you should begin to forget it now be a good boy and take my advice go to San Francisco you'll meet some girl there in a way you will not afterward regret you are young and you're riches to say nothing she said in a faltering voice that was somewhat inconsistent with the mischievous smile that played upon her lips of your kind and simple heart we'll secure that which the world would call unselfish affection from one more equal to you but would always believe was only bought if it came from me I suppose you're right he said simply she glanced quickly at him and her eyebrows straightened he had risen his face white and his gray eyes widely opened I suppose you are right he went on because you're saying to me what my partner said to me this morning when I offered to share my wealth with them God knows as honestly as I offered to share my heart with you I suppose you are both right that there must be some curse of pride or selfishness upon the money that I've got but I've not felt it yet and the fault does not lie with me she gave her shoulders a slight shrug and turned impatiently toward the window when she turned back again he was gone the room around her was empty this room which a moment before had seemed to be pulsating with his boyish passion was now empty and empty of him she bit her lips, rose, and ran eagerly to the window she saw his straw hat and brown curls as he crossed the road she drew her handkerchief sharply away from the withered shrug over which she had thrown it and cast the once treasured remains in the hearth then possibly because she had it ready in her hand she clapped the handkerchief to her eyes and sinking sideways upon the chair he had risen from put her elbows on its back and buried her face in her hands it is the characteristic and perhaps cruelty of a simple nature to make no allowance for complex motives or to even understand them so it seemed to Barker that his simplicity had been met with equal directness it was the possession of this wealth that had in some way hopelessly changed his relations with the world he did not love Kitty any the less he did not even think she had wronged him they, his partners, and his sweetheart were cleverer than he there must be some occult quality in this wealth that he would understand when he possessed it and perhaps it might even make him ashamed of his generosity not in the way that they had said but in his tempting them so audaciously to assume a wrong position it behoved him to take possession of it at once to take also upon himself alone the knowledge, the trials, and responsibilities it would incur his cheeks flushed again as he thought he had tried to tempt an innocent girl with it and he was keenly hurt that he had not seen in Kitty's eyes the tenderness that had softened his partner's refusal he resolved to wait no longer but sell his dreadful stock at once he walked directly to the bank the manager, a shrewd but kindly man to whom Barker was known already received him graciously in recognition of his well-known simple honesty and respectfully as a representative of the equally well-known poor but superior partnership of the gulch he listened with marked attention to Barker's hesitating but brief story only remarking at its close ah, you mean, of course, the second extension when you say first no, said Barker, I mean the first and it said first in the Boomville paper yes, yes, I saw it, it was a printer's error the stock of the first was called in two years ago no, you mean the second for, of course, you've followed the quotations and are likely to know what stock you're holding chairs of when you go back, take a look at them and you'll see I'm right but I brought them with me, said Barker, with a slight flushing as he felt in his pocket and I'm quite sure they are the first he brought them out and laid them on the desk before the manager the words first extension were plainly visible the manager glanced curiously at Barker and his brow darkened did anybody put this up on you, he said sternly did your partner send you here with this stuff no, said Barker eagerly no one, it's all my mistake I see it now, I trust it to the newspaper and you mean to say you never examined the stock or the quotations nor followed it in any way since you had it never, said Barker never thought about it at all till I saw the newspaper so it's not worth anything and to the infinite surprise of the manager there was a slight smile on his boyish face I'm afraid it's not worth the paper it's written on, said the manager gently the smile on Barker's face increased to a little laugh in which his wandering companion could not help joining thank you, said Barker suddenly and rushed away he beats everything, said the manager gazing after him damned if he didn't seem even pleased he was pleased the burden of wealth had fallen from his shoulders the dreadful incubus that had weighed him down and parted his friends from him was gone and God got rid of it by spending it foolishly it had not ruined anybody yet it had not altered anybody in his eyes it was gone and he was a free and happy man once more he would go directly back to his partners they would laugh at him of course but they could not look at him now with the same sad commiserating eyes perhaps even kiddie but here a sudden chill struck him he had forgotten the bill of sale even the dreadful promissory note given to her father and the rash presumption of his wealth how could it ever be paid and more than that it had been given in a fraud he had no money when he gave it and no prospect of any but what he was to get from those worthless shares would anybody believe him that it was only a stupid blunder of his own well yes his partners might believe him but horrible thought he had already implicated them in his fraud even now while he was standing there hesitatingly in the road they were entering upon the new claim he had not paid for could not pay for and in the guise of a benefactor he was dishonoring them yet it was Carter he must meet first he must confess all to him he must go back to the hotel that hotel where he had indignantly left her and tell the father he was a fraud that was terrible to think of perhaps it was part of that money curse that he could not get rid of and was now realizing but it must be done he was simple but his very simplicity had that unhesitating directness of conclusion which is the main factor of what men call pluck he turned back to the hotel and entered the office but Mr. Carter had not yet returned what was to be done he could not wait there there was no time to be lost one other person who knew his expectations and to whom he could confide his failure it was kitty it was to taste the dregs of his humiliation but it must be done he ran up the staircase and knocked timidly at the sitting-room door there was a momentary pause and a weak voice said come in Barker opened the door saw the vision of a handkerchief thrown away of a pair of tearful eyes that suddenly changed to stony indifference and a graceful but stiffening figure but he was past all insult now I would not intrude, he said simply but I came only to see your father I've made an awful blunder more than a blunder I think, a fraud believing that I was rich I purchased your father's claim for my partners and gave them my promissory note I came here to give him back his claim for that note can never be paid I've just been to the bank I find I've made a stupid mistake in the name of the shares upon which I base my belief in my wealth the ones I own are worthless and as poor as ever I'm even poorer for I owe your father money I can never pay to his amazement he saw a look of pain and scorn come into her troubled eyes which he had never seen before this is a feeble trick, she said bitterly it is unlike you, it is unworthy of you good god you must believe me, listen it was all a mistake it's a printer's error I read in the paper that the stock for the first extension mine had gone up when it should have been the second I had some old stock of the first which I'd kept for years and only thought of when I read the announcement in the paper this morning I swear to you but it was unnecessary there was no doubting the truth of that voice, that manner the scorn fled from Miss Kitty's eyes to give place to a stare and then suddenly changed to two bubbling blue wells of laughter she went to the window and laughed she sat down to the piano and laughed she caught up the handkerchief and hiding half her rosy face in it and laughed she finally collapsed into an easy chair and bearing her brown head in its cushion laughed long and confidentially until she brought up suddenly against a sob and then was still Barker was dreadfully alarmed he had heard of hysterics before he felt he ought to do something he moved toward her timidly and gently drew away her handkerchief alas the blue wells were running over now he took her cold hand in his he knelt beside her and passed his arm round her waist he drew her head upon his shoulder he was not sure that any of these things were effective until she suddenly lifted her eyes to his with the last ray of mirth in them vanishing in a big teardrop put her arms around his neck and sobbed oh George you blessed innocent an eloquent silence was broken by a remorseful start from Barker but I must go and warn my poor partners dearest there yet may be time perhaps they've not yet taken possession of your father's claim yes George dear said the young girl with sparkling eyes and tell them to do so at once guess Barker at once do you hear and maybe too late go quick but your father oh I see dearest you will tell him all yourself and spare me I shall do nothing so foolish Georgie nor shall you now don't you see the note isn't due for a month stop have you told anybody but Paul and me only the bank manager she ran out of the room and returned in a minute tying the most enchanting of hats by a ribbon under her oval chin well I'll run over and fix him she said fix him returned Barker I gasped yes I'll say your wicked partners have been playing a practical joke on you and he mustn't give you away he'll do anything for me but my partners didn't on the contrary don't tell me George said Miss Kitty severely they ought never to have let you come here with that stuff but come you must go at once you must not meet Paul you'll blurt out everything to him I know you I'll tell him you could not stay at a luncheon quick now go well there whatever it represented the exclamation was apparently so protracted that Miss Kitty was obliged to push her lover to the front landing before she could disappear by the back stairs but once in the street Barker no longer lingered it was a good three miles back to the Gulch he might still reach it by the time his partners were taking their noon day rest and he resolved that although the messenger had preceded him they would not enter upon the new claim until the afternoon for Barker in spite of his mistresses injunction had no idea of taking what he couldn't pay for he would keep the claim intact until something could be settled for the rest he walked on air Kitty loved him the accursed wealth no longer stood between them they were both poor now everything was possible the sun was beginning to send dwarf shadows toward the east when he reached the Gulch here a new trepidation seized him how would his partners receive the news of his utter failure he was happy for he'd gained Kitty through it but they for a moment it seemed to him that he had purchased his happiness through their loss he stopped took off his hat and ran his fingers remorsefully through his damp curls another thing troubled him he had reached the crest of the Gulch where their old working ground was spread before him like a map they were not there neither were they lying under the four pines on the ridge where they were want to rest at midday he turned with some alarm to the new claim adjoining theirs but there was no sign of them there either a sudden fear that they had after parting from him given up the claim in a fit of disgust and depression and departed now overcame him he clapped his hand on his head and ran in the direction of the cabin he nearly reached it when the rough challenge of Hoosier from the bushes halted him and Demarest suddenly swung into the trail but the singular look of sternness and impatience which he was wearing vanished as he saw Barker and with a loud shout of all right it's only Barker hooray! he ran toward him in an instant he was joined by Stacey from the cabin and the two men catching hold of their returning partner waltzed him joyfully and breathlessly into the cabin but the quick eyed Demarest suddenly let go his hold and stared at Barker's face wow Barker oh boy what's up everything's up gasped the breathless Barker it's all about these stocks it's all the mistake all an infernal lie of that newspaper I never had the right kind of shares the ones I have are worthless rags and the next instant he had blurted out his whole interview with the bank manager the two partners looked at each other and then to Barker's infinite perplexity the same extraordinary convulsion that had seized Miss Kitty fell upon them they laughed holding on each other's shoulders they laughed clinging to Barker's struggling figure they went out and laughed with their backs against a tree they laughed separately and in different corners and then they came up to Barker with tears in their eyes dropped their heads on his shoulders and murmured exhaustedly you blessed ass but said Stacey suddenly how did you manage to buy the claim oh that's the most awful thing boys I've never paid for it grown Barker but Carter sent us to build a sale persisted Demarest I wish shouldn't have taken it I gave my promiser a note at 30 days said Barker desperately and where's the money to come from now but he added wildly as the men glanced at each other you said taking it oh good heavens you don't mean to say that I'm too late that you've you touched it well I reckon that's pretty much what we have been doing Droll Demarest yeah it looks uncommonly like it Droll Stacey Barker glanced blankly from the one to the other well shall we pass our young friend in to see the show said Demarest to Stacey well yes if he'll be perfectly quiet and not breathe on the glasses returned Stacey each gravely took one of Barker's hands and led him to the corner of the cabin there on an old flower barrel stood a large tin prospecting pan in which the partners also occasionally used to need the bread a dirty towel covered it Demarest whisked it dexterously aside and disclosed three large fragments of decomposed gold and quartz Barker started back gift it said Demarest grimly Barker scarcely lift the pan four thousand dollars wait if a penny said Stacey in short staccato sentences in a pocket brought it out the second stroke of a pick we'd been awfully blue after you left awfully blue too when that bill of sale come but we thought you'd been wasting your money on us reckon we oughtn't take it but send it straight back to ya messenger gone then Demarest reckoned as it was done it couldn't be undone and we ought to make just one prospect on the claim and strike a single stroke for you and there it is and there's more on the hillside but it isn't mine it isn't yours it's Carter's I never had the money to pay for it and I haven't got it now but you gave the note and it's not due for thirty days a recollection flashed upon Barker yes he said with thoughtful simplicity that's what Kitty said oh Kitty said so said both partners gravely yes stammered Barker turning away with a heightened color and as I didn't stay there till luncheon I think I'd better be getting it ready he picked up the coffee pot and turned to the hearth as his two partners stepped beyond the door wasn't it exactly like him said Demarest him all over said Stacey and he's worry over that note said Demarest and what Kitty said said Stacey well look here I reckon that wasn't all that Kitty said well of course not what luck end of Barker's luck reading by Jeff Cowgill A Yellow Dog in Selected Stories by Brett Hart this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Selected Stories by Brett Hart A Yellow Dog I never knew why in the western states of America a yellow dog should be proverbially considered the acme of canine degradation and incompetency nor why the possession of one should seriously affect the social standing of its possessor but the fact being established I think we accepted it at Rattler's Ridge without question the matter of ownership was more difficult to settle and although the dog I have in mind at the present riding attached himself impartially and equally to everyone in camp no one ventured to exclusively claim him while after the perpetration of any canine atrocity everybody repudiated him with indecent haste well, I can swear he hasn't been near our shanty for weeks or the retort he was last seen coming out of your cabin expressed the eagerness with which Rattler's Ridge washed its hands of any responsibility yet he was by no means a common dog nor even an unhandsome dog and it was a singular fact that his severest critics vied with each other in narrating instances of his sagacity and insight and agility which they themselves had witnessed he had been seen crossing the flume that spanned grizzly canyon at a height of nine hundred feet on a plank six inches wide he had tumbled down the chute to the south fork a thousand feet below and was found sitting on the riverbank without a scratch except that he was lazily given himself with his off-hined paw he had been forgotten in a snowdrift on a siren shelf and had come home in the early spring with the conceded complacency of an alpine traveller and of plumpness alleged to have been the result of an exclusive diet of buried mailbags and their contents he was generally believed to read the advance election posters and disappear a day or two before the candidates and the brass band which he hated came to the ridge he was suspected of having overlooked Colonel Johnson's hand at poker and of having conveyed to the Colonel's adversary by a succession of barks the danger of betting against four kings while these statements were supplied by wholly unsupported witnesses it was a very human weakness of Rattler's Ridge that the responsibility of corroboration was passed to the dog himself and he was looked upon as a consummate liar snooping round here and calling yourself a poker-sharp archie Scoot, you yaller pison was a common adoration whenever the unfortunate animal intruded upon a card-party if there was a spark, an atom of truth in that dog I'd believe my own eyes that I saw him sitting up and trying to magnetize a jaybird off a tree but what are you gonna do with a yaller equivocator like that I have said that he was yellow or, to use the ordinary expression, yaller indeed, I'm inclined to believe that much of the ignominy attached to the epithet lay in this favorite pronunciation men who habitually spoke of a yellow bird a yellow hammer, a yellow leaf always alluded to him as a yaller dog he certainly was yellow after a bath, usually compulsory he presented a decided gamboge streak down his back from the top of his forehead to the stump of his tail fading in his sides and flanked to a delicate straw color his breast, legs, and feet when not reddened by slum gullion in which he was fond of waiting, were white a few attempts at ornamental decoration from the India ink-pot of the storekeeper failed partly through the yellow dog's excessive agility which would never give the paint time to dry on him and partly through his success in transferring his markings to the trousers and blankets of the camp the size and shape of his tail which had been cut off before his introduction to Rattler's Ridge were favorite sources of speculation to the miners as determining both his breed and his moral responsibility in coming into camp in that defective condition there was a general opinion that he couldn't have looked worse with a tail and its removal was therefore a gratuitous effrontery his best feature was his eyes which were a lustrous Van Dyke brown and sparkling with intelligence but here again he suffered from evolution through environment and their original trustful openness was marred by the experience of watching for flying stones sods and passing kicks from the rear so that the pupils were continually reverting to the outer angle of the eyelid nevertheless none of these characteristics decided the vexed question of his breed his speed and scent pointed to a hound and it is related that on one occasion he was laid on the trail of a wildcat with such success that he followed it apparently out of the state returning at the end of two weeks foot sore but blandly contented attaching himself to a prospecting party he was sent under the same belief into the brush to drive off a bear who was supposed to be haunting the campfire he returned in a few minutes with the bear driving it into the unarmed circle and scattering the whole party after this the theory of his being a hunting dog was abandoned yet it was said on the usual uncorroborated evidence that he had put up a quail and his qualities as a retriever were for a long time accepted until during a shooting expedition for wild ducks it was discovered that the one he had brought back had never been shot and the party were obliged to compound damages with an adjacent settler his fondness for paddling in the ditches and slum-gullion at one time suggested a water spaniel he could swim and would occasionally bring out of the river sticks and pieces of bark that had been thrown in but as he always had to be thrown in with them and was a good-sized dog his aquatic reputation faded also and it seemed simply a yaller dog what more could be said his actual name was Bones given to him no doubt through the provincial custom of confounding the occupation of the individual with his quality for which it was pointed out precedent could be found in some old English family names but if Bones generally exhibited no preference for any particular individual in camp he always made an exception in favor of drunkards even an ordinary, roistering, bacchanalian party brought him out from under a tree or a shed in the keenest satisfaction he would accompany them through the long, straggling street of the settlement barking his delight at every step or misstep of the revelers and exhibiting none of that mistrust of eye which marked his attendance upon the sane and the respectable he accepted even their uncouth play without a snarl or a yelp hypocritically pretending even to like it and I conscientiously believe would have allowed a tin can to be attached to his tail if the hand that tied it on were only unsteady and the voice that bade him lie still were husky with liquor he would see the party cheerfully into a saloon wait outside the door his tongue fairly lawling from his mouth in enjoyment until they reappeared permit them even to tumble over him with pleasure and then gamble away before them a list of awkwardly projected stones and epithets he would afterward accompany them separately home or lie with them at crossroads until they were assisted to their cabins then he would rakeishly to his own haunt by the saloon stove with the slightly conscious air of having been a bad dog yet of having had a good time we never could satisfy ourselves whether his enjoyment arose from some merely selfish conviction that he was more secure with the physically and mentally incompetent from some active sympathy with active wickedness or from a grim sense of his own mental superiority at such moments but the general belief lent toward his kindred sympathy as a yaller dog with all that was disreputable and this was supported by another very singular canine manifestation the sincere flattery of simulation or imitation Uncle Billy Riley for a short time enjoyed the position of being the camp drunkard and at once became an object of bone's greatest solicitude he not only accompanied him everywhere curled at his feet or head according to Uncle Billy's attitude at the moment but it was noticed began presently to undergo a singular alteration in his own habits and appearance from being an active tireless scout and forager a bull and unovertakeable marauder he became lazy and apathetic allowed gophers to burrow under him without endeavoring to undermine the settlement in his frantic endeavors to dig them out permitted squirrels to flash their tails at him a hundred yards away forgot his usual caches and left his favorite bones unburied and bleaching in the sun his eyes grew dull his coat lustrous in proportion as his companion became blear-eyed and ragged in running his usual arrow-like directness began to deviate and it was not unusual to meet the pair together zig-zagging up the hill indeed Uncle Billy's condition could be predetermined by bone's appearance at times when his temporary master was invisible the old man must have an awful jag on today was casually remarked when an extra fluffiness and imbecility was noticeable in the passing bones at first it was believed that he drank also but when careful investigation proved this hypothesis untenable he was freely called a dirned time-servant yaller hypocrite not a few advanced the opinion that if bones did not actually lead Uncle Billy astray he at least slovered him over and coddled him until the old man got conceded in his wickedness this undoubtedly led to a compulsory divorce between them and Uncle Billy was happily dispatched to a neighboring town and a doctor bones seemed to miss him greatly ran away for two days and was supposed to have visited him to have been shocked at his convalescence and to have been cut by Uncle Billy in his reformed character and he returned to his old act of life again and buried his past with his forgotten bones it was said that he was afterward detected in trying to lead an intoxicated tramp into camp after the methods employed by a blind man's dog but was discovered in time by the, of course, uncorroborated narrator I should be tempted to leave him thus in his original and picturesque sin but the same veracity which compelled me to transcribe his faults and iniquities obliges me to describe his ultimate and somewhat monotonous reformation which came from no fault of his own it was a joyous day at Rattler's Ridge that was equally the advent of his change of heart and the first stagecoach that had been induced to diverge from the high road and stop regularly at our settlement flags were flying from the post office and polka saloon and bones was flying before the brass band that he detested when the sweetest girl in the county, Pinky Preston, daughter of the county judge and hopelessly beloved by all Rattler's Ridge, stepped from the coach she had glorified by occupying as an invited guest what makes him run away? she asked quickly opening her lovely eyes in a possibly innocent wonder that anything could be found to run away from her he don't like the brass band, we explained eagerly how funny, murmured the girl, is it as out of tune as all that? this irresistible witticism alone would have been enough to satisfy us nothing but repeat it to each other all the next day but we were positively transported when we saw her suddenly gather her dainty skirts in one hand and trip off through the red dust toward Bones who with his eyes over his yellow shoulder had halted in the road and half turned in mingled disgust and rage at the spectacle of the descending trombone we held our breath as she approached him would Bones evade her as he did us at such moments? or would he save our reputation and consent for the moment to accept her as a new kind of inebriate? she came nearer, he saw her he began to slowly quiver with excitement his stump of a tail vibrating with such rapidity that the loss of the missing portion was scarcely noticeable suddenly she stopped before him took his yellow head between her little hands, lifted it and looked down in his handsome brown eyes with her two lovely blue ones what passed between them in that magnetic glance no one ever knew she returned with him, said to him casually we're not afraid of brass bands are we? to which he apparently acquiesced at least stifling his disgust of them while he was near her which was nearly all the time during the speech making her gloved hand at his yellow head were always near together and at the crowning ceremony her public checking of Yuba Bill's way-bill on behalf of the township with a gold pencil presented to her by the stage company Bones' joy, far from knowing no bounds, seemed to know nothing but them and he witnessed it apparently in the air no one dared to interfere for the first time a local pride in Bones sprang up in our hearts and we lied to each other in his praises openly and shamelessly then the time came for parting we were standing by the door of the coach, hats in hand, as Miss Pinkie was about to step into it Bones was waiting by her side, confidently looking into the interior and apparently selecting his own seat on the lap of Judge Preston in the corner when Miss Pinkie held up the sweetest of admonitory fingers then, taking his head between her two hands she again looked into his brimming eyes and said simply good dog with the gentless of emphasis on the adjective and popped into the coach the six bay horses started as one the gorgeous green and gold vehicle bounded forward the red dust rose behind and the yellow dog danced in and out of it to the very outskirts of the settlement and then he soberly returned a day or two later he was missed but the fact was afterward known that he was at Spring Valley the county town where Miss Preston lived and he was forgiven a week afterward he was missed again but this time for a longer period and then a pathetic letter arrived from Sacramento for the storekeeper's wife would you mind, wrote Miss Pinkie Preston asking some of your boys to come over here to Sacramento and bring back Bones I don't mind having the dear dog walk out with me at Spring Valley where everyone knows me but here he does make one so noticeable on account of his color I've got scarcely a frock that he agrees with he don't go with my pink muslin and that lovely buff tint he makes three shades lighter you know yellow is so trying a consultation was quickly held by the whole settlement and a deputation sent to Sacramento to relieve the unfortunate girl we were all quite indignant with Bones luckily enough I think it was greatly tempered with our new pride in him while he was with us alone his peculiarities had been scarcely appreciated but the recurrent phrase that yellow dog that they keep at the rattlers gave us a mysterious importance along the countryside as if we had secured a mascot in some zoological curiosity this was further indicated by a singular occurrence a new church had been built at the crossroads an eminent divine had come from San Francisco to preach the opening sermon after a careful examination of the camp's wardrobe and some felicitous exchange of apparel a few of us were deputed to represent rattlers at the Sunday service in our white ducks, straw hats, and flannel blouses we were sufficiently picturesque and distinctive as honest minors to be shown off in one of the front pews seated near the prettiest girls who offered us their hymn books in the cleanly odor of fresh pine shavings and iron muslin and blown over by the spices of our own woods through the open windows a deep sense of the abiding peace of Christian communion settled upon us at this supreme moment someone murmured in an awe-stricken whisper will you look at Bones? we looked Bones had entered the church and gone up in the gallery through a pardonable ignorance and modesty but perceiving his mistake was now calmly walking along the gallery rail before the astounded worshipers reaching the end he paused for a moment and carelessly looked down it was about fifteen feet to the floor below the simplest jump in the world for the mountain-bred Bones daintly, gingerly, lazily, and yet with a conceited airiness of manner as if humanly speaking he had one leg in his pocket and were doing it on three he cleared the distance dropping just in front of the chancel without a sound turned himself around three times and then lay comfortably down three deacons were instantly in the aisle coming up before the eminent divine who, we fancied, wore a restrained smile we heard the hurried whispers belongs to them quite a local institution here you know don't like to offend sensibilities and the ministers prompt by no means as he went on with his service a short month ago we would have repudiated Bones today we sat there in slightly supercilious attitudes as if to indicate that any affront offered to Bones would be an insult to ourselves and followed by our instantaneous withdrawal in a body all went well however until the minister lifting the large Bible from the communion table and holding it in both hands before him walked toward a reading stand by the altar rails Bones uttered a distinct growl the minister stopped we, and we alone, comprehended in a flash the whole situation the Bible was nearly the size and shape of one of those soft plods of sod which we were in the playful habit of launching that Bones when he lay half asleep in the sun in order to see him cleverly evaded we held our breath what was to be done but the opportunity belonged to our leader Jeff Briggs a confoundedly good-looking fellow with the golden mustache of a northern Viking and the curls of an Apollo secure in his beauty and bland in his self conceit he rose from the pew and stepped before the chancel rails I would wait a moment if I were you sir he said respectfully that he will go out quietly what is wrong whispered the minister in some concern he thinks you are going to heave that book at him sir without giving him a fair show as we do the minister looked perplexed but remained motionless with the book in his hands Bones arose, walked half way down the aisle and vanished like a yellow flash with this justification of his reputation Bones disappeared for a week at the end of that time we received a polite note from Judge Preston saying that the dog had become quite domiciled in their house and begged that the camp without yielding up their valuable property in him would allow him to remain at Spring Valley for an indefinite time that both the judge and his daughter with whom Bones was already an old friend would be glad if the members of the camp would visit their old favorite whenever they desired to assure themselves that he was well cared for I am afraid that the bait thus ingenuously thrown out had a good deal to do with our ultimate yielding however the reports of those who visited Bones were wonderful and marvelous he was residing there in state lying on rugs in the drawing room coiled up under the judicial desk in the judge's study sleeping regularly on the mat outside Miss Pinky's bedroom door or lazily snapping at flies on the judge's lawn he's as yaller as ever said one of our informants but it don't somehow seem to be the same fact that we used to break claws over in the old time just to see him scoot out of the dust and now I must record a fact which I am aware all lovers of dogs will indignantly deny and which will be furiously baited by every faithful hound since the days of Ulysses Bones not only forgot but absolutely cut us those who called upon the judge in store clothes he would perhaps casually notice but he would sniff at them as if detecting and resenting them under their superficial exterior the rest he simply paid no attention to the more familiar term of Bonesy formerly applied to him as in our rare moments of endearment produced no response this pained I think some of the more youthful of us but through some strange human weakness it also increased the camp's respect for him nevertheless we spoke of him familiarly to strangers at the very moment he ignored us I am afraid that we also took some pains to point out that he was getting fat and unwieldy and losing his elasticity implying covertly that his choice was a mistake and his life a failure a year after he died in the odor of sanctity and respectability being found one morning coiled up and stiff on the mat outside Miss Pinky's door when the news was conveyed to us we asked permission the camp being in a prosperous condition to erect a stone over his grave but when it came to the inscription we could only think of the two words murmured to him by Miss Pinky which we always believe he erected his conversion good dog end of a yellow dog