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THE

TRANSFORMATION OF JOB

A TALE OF THE HIGH SIERRAS


[Illustration: (portrait of author)]


_BY FREDERICK VINING FISHER._


[Illustration: (decoration)]


  DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING COMPANY
  ELGIN, ILL., AND
  36 WASHINGTON ST., CHICAGO.

  Copyright, 1900,
  By David C. Cook Publishing Company.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE.


If one will take the trouble to tramp with staff in hand the high
Sierras, he will find not only the Yosemite, but Gold City and Pine
Tree Ranch, though perhaps they bear another name. Most of the quaint
characters of this tale still dwell among the vine-clad hills. To
introduce to you these friends that have interested the author, and to
tell anew the story of the human soul, this work is written.

Out of love of never-to-be-forgotten memories of Pine Tree Ranch, the
author dedicates this book to him who once welcomed him to its white
porch, but who now sleeps beneath the shadow of the mountains--Andrew
Malden.

FREDERICK VINING FISHER.




THE TRANSFORMATION OF JOB,

A TALE OF THE HIGH SIERRAS.

_By FREDERICK VINING FISHER._




CHAPTER I.

THE NEW ARRIVAL AT GOLD CITY.


The stage was late at Gold City. It always was. Everybody knew it, but
everybody pretended to expect it on time.

Just exactly as the old court-house bell up the hill struck six, the
postmistress hurriedly opened her door and stood anxiously peering up
the street, the loafers who had been dozing on the saloon benches
shuffled out and leaned up against the posts, the old piano in the
Miners' Home began to rattle and a squeaky violin to gasp for breath,
while the pompous landlord of the "Palace Hotel," sending a Chinaman
to drive away a dozen pigs that had been in front of his door through
the day, took his post on the sidewalk to await his coming guests--who
generally never came.

There was a time when Gold City had been a great town--

    "In days of old,
    In days of gold,
    In days of forty-nine."

The boys often hung around the saloon steps and listened with gaping
mouths while Yankee Sam and the other old men told of the golden age,
when the streets of Gold City were crowded and Tom Perry made a
fortune in one day and lost it all gambling that night; when there was
more life in Gold City than 'Frisco could shake a stick at; when the
four quarters of the globe came in on the stage and mined all day,
danced all night and went away rich.

But Gold City, now, was neither large nor rich. The same eternal hills
surrounded her and the same great pine trees shaded her in summer's
heat and hung in white like sentinals of the past in the winter's
moonlight. But the sound of other days had died away. The creek bed
had long since yielded up its treasure and lay neglected, exposed to
the heat and frost. The old brick buildings rambling up the street
were still left, but were fast tottering to decay. Side by side with
the occupied buildings, stood half-fallen adobes and shattered blocks
filled only with the ghosts of other years.

Up on the hill rose the court house, the perfect image of some quaint
Dutch church along the Mohawk in York State. Gray and old, changeless
it stood, looking down in silent disdain on these California buildings
hastening to an early grave. Here and there, hid by pines and vines,
up the dusty side-hill roads, one caught glimpses of pretty cottage
homes, where dwelt the few who, when the tide had turned, were left
stranded in this far-off California mining town.

Yes, Gold City was of the past. Her glory had long since departed. Yet
somehow everyone expected its return. The old men read the 'Frisco
papers, when they could get them, and grew excited when they heard
that silver had fallen and gold had a new chance for life. The night
that news came, Yankee Sam ordered a treat for the whole crowd and
politely told the saloon-keeper that he would settle shortly, when
the boom came. Possibly some great capitalist might come in any day
and buy up the mines and things would boom. He might be on the stage
any night. That is the reason the whole town came out regularly to
meet the stage, marveled if it was late, and gambled on the
probability that a telegram from 'Frisco had held it for a special
train of "bigbugs." That is why the hotel-keeper drove the pigs away
and prepared for business.

They had done that thing now in Gold City so long it was beginning to
be second nature; and yet deeper was getting the sleep, and the only
thing that could rouse the town was the coming of the stage with its
possibilities.

The stage was later than usual this night. So late the old-timers were
sure Joe must have a passenger. As it was fifty miles over the plains
and foot-hills that Joe had to come, there was, of course, plenty of
chance of his being late. In fact, he never was on time. They all knew
that. But to think that Joe would be two whole hours back was a little
unusual for a town where nothing unusual ever happened. The big
colored porter at the Miners' Home was tired of holding his bell ready
to ring, the loungers on the benches in front of the corner grocery
had exhausted their yarns, when the dust up the street on the hill
caused the barefooted boys to stop their games and stand expectant in
the road to watch Joe arrive.

With a shout and a flourish, the four horses came tearing around the
court-house corner, plunged relentlessly down the hill and dragged the
rickety old coach up to the hotel, with a jerk that nearly upset the
poor thing and brought admiration to everybody's eyes. Fortunately for
the coach, that was the only time of day the horses ever went off a
snail's pace. The dinner bell at the Miners' Home clanged vigorously,
the piano in the saloon opposite set up a clatter, the crowd hurried
around the dust-enveloped coach to see if they could discover a
passenger, while the red-faced landlord shouted, "This way to the
Palace Hotel, gentlemen!"

To-night, when the dust cleared away, for the first time in weeks the
crowds discovered a passenger. In fact, he was out on the brick
sidewalk before they saw him. Pale-faced, blue-eyed, with delicate,
clear-cut features, clad in a neat gray coat and short trousers, which
merged into black stockings and shoes, with a black tie and soiled
white collar, all topped off with a derby hat and plenty of dust, a
wondering, trembling lad of twelve stood before them. Such a sight had
not been seen in Gold City in its history. A city lad dropped down
among these rough miners and worn-out wrecks of humanity!

"Well, pard, who be yer?" at last asked a voice; and a dozen echoed
his query.

With a frightened look around for some refuge, such as the deer gives
when surprised, the new-comer answered. "I am Mr. Arthur Teale's boy,
and I want to see him;" and, turning to the landlord, asked if he
would please tell Mr. Teale his boy had come.

Not a man moved, but each glanced significantly at the other. Yankee
Sam, a sort of father to the town, who, at times, felt his
responsibility, when not too overcome by the hot stuff at the Miners'
Home, now stepped up and interviewed the lad.

Mr. Teale's son, was he? And who was Mr. Teale, and where did he come
from, and why was he traveling alone?

Standing there in the evening twilight, on the rough brick walk in
front of the Palace Hotel, to that group of rough-handed men in
unkempt locks and woolen shirts and overalls, to those shirt-sleeved,
well-oiled, red-faced bar-keepers, with the landlord in the center,
the passenger told his story.

He told of a home in the far East; of how, one day long ago, his
father started away out West to make his fortune; how he patted him on
the head and said some day he should send for him and mamma--but he
never did. The little fellow faltered, as he told how his mother grew
sick and his grandfather died; and how, after a time, he and his
mother had started to find father, and over the wide prairies and high
mountains and dusty deserts, had traveled the long journey in search
of husband and father.

The young eyes filled with tears--yes, and some older, rough ones did,
too, that had been dry for years--as he told how mother had grown
weaker and weaker; and, when they had reached the California city and
the summer's heat had climbed up the mountain side, she had died; and,
dying, had told him to go on and find Gold City and his father. So he
had come, and "Would some one please tell Mr. Teale his boy was here?"

That night there was great excitement in Gold City. Groups of men were
talking in undertones everywhere. With a promise to try and find his
father, Yankee Sam left the boy sitting on the doorstep of the Palace;
where, hungry and tired, he fell asleep, while all the street arabs
stood at a respectful distance commenting on "the city kid what says
he's Teale's boy." No one thought to take the little wanderer in. No
one thought he was hungry. They were too excited for that. Teale's kid
was here. What should they do with him and how could they tell him?

[Illustration: Yankee Sam interviewed the lad.--See page 6.]

Did they know Teale? Yes, they did. Slim, pale-faced, the picture of
this boy, only taller, fuller grown, he had come to Gold City. With
ragged clothes that spoke of better days, he had tramped into town one
winter night through the snow and begged a bed at the Miners' Home. He
had struck it rich for a time down by Mormon Bar, and treated all the
boys in joy over his good luck, then lost it all over the card table
in the end. Thrice he had repeated that experience. In his better
moments he had talked of a wife and blue-eyed boy in the East, then
again he seemed to forget them. The gaming table, the drink, the crowd
he went with, ruined him. One night the boys heard cries in the hollow
back of "Monte Carlo," the worst saloon and gambling den in the
place; when morning came they found Teale and a boon companion both
dead there. Who was to blame? Nobody knew. Under the old pine trees on
the hill, just outside the graveyard gate, where the respectable dead
lay, they buried them. And now Teale's boy was come, and who should
tell him, and where should he go?




CHAPTER II.

ANDREW MALDEN.


Andrew Malden was in town that night, yet no one thought of asking
him, the hardest-hearted man in Grizzly county. Rich, with acres to
spare, a mill that turned out lumber by the wholesale, horses that
could outstrip any Bucephalus in the county. Either from jealousy or
some cause, the world about Gold City, Frost Creek, Chichilla, all
hated Andy Malden.

No one noticed how he listened to the story, how he glanced more than
once at the tired traveler, till they heard him order his horses at
moon-up, order the landlord to wake the boy and feed him.

When, promptly at ten, he took the strange lad in his arms and put him
in his buckboard, seized the reins and drove toward Spring Creek, the
Pines and home, the whole town was more dumfounded than in years, and
the landlord said he guessed old Andy was crazy. Only Yankee Sam
seemed to understand, and the old man muttered to himself, as he
turned once more to the saloon, "Well, now! Andy thinks it is his
youngster come back again that I helped lay beneath the pines, coming
thirty years now."

Sam was right. It was the dormant love of thirty long-gone years, all
roused again, that stirred the old man that night. The lonely,
homeless boy on the "Palace" doorstep had touched a heart that most
men thought too hard to be broken in this world or the next.

Andrew Malden was not a bad man, if he was hard. The outward vices
which had ruined most men who had come to Gold City to gain the world
and lose their souls, never touched him. That craving for excitement,
the natural heritage of hot-headed youth, which often in that old
mining camp lasted long after the passionate days of young life and
lit the glazed eyes of age with a wild, unnatural fire, never seemed a
part of his nature. Other men fed the fires of passion with the hot
stuff of the "Monte Carlo," and the midnight gaming table, till,
tottering wrecks consumed of self, they lingered on the doorsteps of
Gold City, the ghosts of men that were. The world of appetite was a
foreign realm to him. He looked with contempt on men who lost
themselves in its meshes. But he was a hard man, the people said, and
selfishness and a cold heart were far worse vices in the eyes of the
generous-hearted, rough miners who came and went among these hills,
than what the polished, cold, calculating money-getters of the far-off
city counted as sin. So Andrew Malden was more of a sinner in the
estimation of Gold City than Yankee Sam. Perhaps the ethics of that
mining camp were truer than the world thinks. Perhaps he who sins
against society is worse than he who sins against self.

The fact was that, though Andrew Malden had grown old in Grizzly
county, and no face was more familiar, no one knew him. He was a hard
man, but not as the people meant. There are two kinds of stern men in
this world: Those who are without hearts, who take pleasure in the
suffering of others; and those who, repulsed sometime, somewhere, have
closed the portals of their inmost souls and hid away within
themselves. Such was the "Lord of Pine Tree Mountain," as the boys
used to call him.

Once he was a merry, happy, strong mountain lad in the old Kentucky
hills, where he had helped his father, a hardy New Englander, make a
new home. He had a heart in those old days. He loved the hills and
forests; loved the romping dogs that played around him as he drove the
logging team to the river-mill; aye, more than that, he had loved Mary
Moore. She was bright and sweet and pretty, a bewitching maid, who
seemed all out of place on the frontier. He loved to hear her talk of
Charleston Bay and the Berkshire Hills, and of the days when she
danced the minuet on Cambridge Green. Once he asked her to marry him.
It was the month the war broke out with Mexico. The frontiersmen were
slinging down their axes and swinging their guns across their
shoulders. She laughed, and said that if Andy would go and fight and
come home a hero, she would marry him--perhaps.

So he went. Tramped over miles and miles of Mexican soil, fought at
Monterey and Buena Vista, endured and almost died--men said for love
of Yankeedom; he knew it was for Mary Moore.

The war over, he came back a hero, and Col. Malden was named with old
Zach Taylor by tried, loyal men. But Mary Moore was gone. She had
found another hero. Gone to Massachusetts, so they said.

That night, Andy Malden left the Kentucky hills forever. The news of
gold in California was in the air. He would join the mad procession
that, over plain and isthmus, was going hither. He would go as far
from the old life as deserts and mountains would put him.

So he came to Gold City. With a diligence far more systematic than the
others, he had washed the gold from Frost Creek and off Mormon Bar.
Other men lost all they found in daylight over the gaming table at
midnight. He never gambled. All the others who succeeded went below to
the great city or back to the States to enjoy their gains. He cared
naught for the city, he hated the States; he never went. In a solitary
mountain spot amid immeasurable grandeur, he buried himself in his
lonely cabin. Yet he was not a hermit. He mingled with the crowd; he
sought its suffrage for public office; yet he was not of it. He was a
mystery to all. They elected him to office and continued to do so;
why, they never knew, unless it was because he could save for them
when others could not.

At last he married a farmer's girl from the plains, who had come up
there to teach the Frost Creek school. She failed as a teacher. She
was born for the kitchen and farm. Andrew Malden saw it. She would
make him as good a helpmate as any, better than the Chinese women and
half-breeds with whom some of his neighbors consorted, so he married.

The mines were giving out. His keen eye saw there were mines above
ground as well as below. He quietly left off placer mining, drew out
some gold from a hidden purse, and, before the world of Gold City knew
it, had nine hundred acres on Pine Tree Mountain, a big saw-mill
going, a nice ranch home, and barns like folks back in the States.

At last a baby came--a baby boy; almost the first in Grizzly county.
The neighbors would have cheered if they dared. Judge Lawson did dare
to suggest a celebration, but the people were afraid of the stern man
on Pine Tree Mountain.

Oh, how he loved that boy! His wife looked on with wonder, for she
thought he knew not what stuff love was made of. It was not long. A
few short years, and the lad, who seemed so strangely merry for a son
of Andy Malden, grew pale and took the fever and died; and, where the
pine trees stoop to shade the mountain flowers in hot midsummer,
strange Yankee Sam and Andy, all alone, laid him to rest. There was no
clergyman. The "Gospel Peddlers," as the miners called them, had not
yet come to the hills to stay. Just as Sam was putting the soil over
the rough box, Andy stopped him and muttered something about the boy's
prayer. He must say it for him, and he whispered in a broken voice,
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep."

That was the last prayer Andrew Malden had uttered. Many years had
come and gone; more and more he had lived within himself. He used to
go to the boy's grave on holidays. Now he never went. For years his
wife had lived with him and kept his house and prepared his food, and
grown, like him, silent and apart from all around. She died at last
and he gave her a high-toned funeral; had a coffin from the city and a
preacher and all that. She had died of loneliness. He did not know it.
She did not realize it. He went on as if it was a matter of course.
The old house was kept up carefully; a Chinaman, as silent as himself,
kept it for him, and a corps of men kept him busy at the mill.

He was rich, the people said; he was mean and grinding, the men
muttered; and yet he prospered when others failed. Men envied, feared,
hated him. Now he was growing old and men were wondering who would
have his riches when he was gone. He had no kin this side the Ohio;
and, for aught he knew, nowhere. His wife's nephews and cousins,
pegging away in these hills, were beginning to build air-castles of
days when the Pine Tree mill should be theirs.

Such was the old man who drove along in the moonlight, past Mormon Bar
and over Chichilla Hill, holding a sleeping lad in his arms; and
feeling, for the first time in years, the heart within him.

It was nearer dawn than midnight when the tired team, which had been
slowly creeping up the mountain road for hours, turned into the lane
above the mill and waited for their owner to swing open the gate which
barred the way to the private road leading through the oak pasture to
Pine Tree Ranch and home. It was one of those matchless nights that
come only in the mountains, when the world is flooded with a soft,
silvery light and the great trees stand out transfigured against the
sky, amid a silence profound and awe-inspiring.

It had been a long ride; aye, a long one indeed to Andrew Malden. He
had traveled across more than half a century of life since they left
Gold City. His own childhood, Mary Moore, old Kentucky, had all come
back to him. Then he had thought of that silent grave down beyond Gold
City, and of the large part of his life buried there. He turned to the
lad at his side, sleeping unconscious of life's ills and
disappointments, of which, poor boy, he had already had his share. The
sight of the innocent face thrilled the old man. In his slumbers the
boy murmured, "Mamma, papa;" and, turning, the old man did a strange
thing for him. He leaned over and kissed the lad, and whispered,
"Mamma, papa! Boy, as long as Andy Malden lives, he shall be both to
you."

When they reached the house, he hushed the dogs to silence, bade Hans,
who stared astonished at his master's guest, to take the horses; and,
lifting the sleeping form, carried it into his room, and, gently
removing coat and shoes, laid the boy in the great bed, while he
prepared to stretch himself on a couch near by.

That night a new life came to Andrew Malden and the Pine Tree Ranch.




CHAPTER III.

THE HORSE-RACE.


"Yer darsn't do it! Yer old Malden's slave, yer know yer are, and yer
darsn't breathe 'less he says so."

It was in front of the Miners' Home in Gold City, and the speaker was
an overgrown, brawny, low-browed boy of some seventeen years, who, in
ragged clothes and an old slouch hat, leaned against the post that
helped support the tumble-down roof of that notorious establishment.
In front of him, barefooted and in overalls rolled up over
well-browned legs, old blue cap, astride a little black pony whose
eyes rolled appreciatively as he lovingly half leaned upon her neck,
sat Job Malden, as the store-keepers called him; or "Andy's
Tenderfoot," as the boys dubbed him.

You would not have dreamed, had you seen him, that this brown-skinned,
tall fifteen-year-old, who rose in his saddle at this remark and spoke
out sharp and strong, was the same pale-faced city lad who had come in
the stage three years ago, homeless and friendless. The mountains had
done wonders for him; the pallor had gone from his cheeks; the sun had
tanned his shapely limbs; the wild life of nature and the still
rougher world of humanity had roused all his temper and passion. Yet,
withal, there was the touch of another world in his face. No stranger,
at second view, would have taken him for a native born. He had known a
different realm, and it had left its trace in a high brow, a fine
face, a clearer eye than one usually saw on the streets of the mining
camp.

"Yer darsn't do it!" leered again the same contemptible fellow. "Yer a
city kid an' hain't got sand 'nuff to make an ant-hill. I hearn tell
yer get the old man to button yer clothes, and yer cry in the
dark--guess it's so, ain't it, tenderfoot?"

At this remark the crowd of loungers around broke forth into cheers,
and Job's eyes, usually so blue, flashed fire. He sprang from Bess'
back, and, in an instant, had struck the bully a blow that sent him
reeling back into the arms of Yankee Sam. A moment, and a general
mélee seemed imminent, when Dan Dean stepped up and called a halt. He
was the smoothest, most affable, meanest fellow in town, nephew by
marriage to the lord of Pine Tree Mountain, and, as he had always
boasted, the lord that was to be.

Job had always felt, ever since he came to Grizzly county, that Dan
was his mortal enemy, yet he had always been so sly Job had never been
able to prove him guilty of any one of the thousand petty annoyances
he was sure were instigated by him.

Taking Job by the arm, Dan now led him off to one side, while the
crowd were laughing at the blubbering bully backing up the street and
threatening all sorts of vengeance on "that tenderfoot."

All the trouble was over a horse-race. It was coming off next Sunday
down at Coyote Valley, four miles below town. Pete Wilkins had offered
his horse against all Grizzly county, and Dan Dean had boasted that he
had a horse, a black mare--or at least his Uncle Andy had--that could
beat any horse Pete could trot out. Pete had dared him to appear with
the mare; and Dan, well knowing he could not get her, was doing his
best to induce Job to steal away with her and run the race for him.
"Me and yer is cousins, yer know, seein' yer call the old man uncle
and he's my sure-enough uncle; so we's cousins, and we ought to be
pardners; now yer run the race, get the gold nugget the fellows at the
Yellow Jacket have put up, and I'll get Pete's bet, and my! won't we
have a lark! Fact is, yer don't want fellers to think yer a baby, I
know; and, as for its being Sunday, I say the better the day the
better the deed. Come, Job. I jest want to see the old black mare come
in across the line and you on her! My! what a hot one yer'll be! The
fellers will never call yer tenderfoot again!"

It was a big temptation to Job, the biggest the boy had ever known--to
beat Pete; to show off Bess; to prove he was no "tenderfoot" or "kid"
any more. But--oh, that but!--how could he deceive Mr. Malden! And
then, Sunday, too!

"Gold nugget! Whew! Such a chance!" insidious Dan still kept crying,
till Job shut his teeth together, turned from his mother's face which,
somehow, persisted in haunting him just then, laughed a sort of hollow
laugh, and said with an oath--the first he had ever uttered out
loud--that sure he would be there and show these Gold City bullies and
Pete and the whole crowd he was nobody's slave. Yet, as he said it,
there came a sort of feeling into his soul which he repelled, but
which yet came back again, that he was now indeed a slave--a slave to
Dan, a slave to the Evil One.

       *       *       *       *       *

Coyote Valley was all alive. Vaqueros from the foot-hill ranches were
tearing up and down the dusty road along Coyote Creek from Wilkins'
ranch to the foot of the valley, buckboards loaded with Mexicans,
Joe's stage creaking beneath the weight of half the roughs of Gold
City, groups of excited miners on foot, were making their way as fast
as possible to Wilkins' old hay barn, which had been turned into a
combination of saloon and grand stand. Under the shade of an immense
live-oak just west of the barn, the big waiter at the Miners' Home was
running an opposition saloon to the one inside, with a plank on two
kegs for a bar. The center of the barn was already filled with
dark-skinned Señoritas and tall, gawky miners dancing to the music of
a squeaky violin.

The air was filled with dust and bets and oaths, when on that strange
Sunday morning Job galloped up Coyote Valley and pulled up in time to
hear Dan's voice in high pitch cry out:

"There she is, the best mare in Grizzly county; ten to one against the
crowd! Come in, Job; come up, boys! Let's have a drink around to the
success of the Hon. Job Malden, the slickest rider in all the hills!"

Almost before he knew it. Job was hauled bodily up to the bar and had
a beer glass in his hand. How strange he felt! How queer it all was!
He had been in the mountains three years, but this was his first
Sunday picnic.

Andrew Malden, though he had no religion, had always seen that Job
went to Sunday-school at the Frost Creek School. To-day he had
ostensibly started for there. But this was very different from the old
log school-house.

How different Job looked from the rest! He wore "store clothes" and a
neck-tie. In the rush, something dropped on the floor. He looked down
and picked it up, with a quick glance around, while a great lump came
into his throat. It was a little Testament, his mother's, the one she
had given him the day she died, and there was the old temperance
pledge he had signed in a boy's scrawling hand. He was supposed to be
at Sunday-school, so he had been obliged to carry the book.

For a moment he hesitated, then he jammed it in his pocket out of
sight. He hated it, he hated himself. The step was taken; he took the
glass, he drank with the rest. He left the bar with a proud air. He
was a man. He would win that race or die.

       *       *       *       *       *

All day long the violin squeaked, the clattering feet resounded on the
barn floor, the kegs were emptied into throats, and races of all
kinds--fat men's races, women's races, old men's races--followed each
other. At last, the great event was called--Malden's mare against
Pete's noted plunger. The Vaqueros cleared the way, a pistol shot in
the distance announced they had started, a cloud of dust that they
were coming. It was not a trot; it was a neck-and-neck run, such as
Job had taken hundreds of times over the great pasture lot on Pine
Tree Ranch. He was perfectly at home. With arms clasped around her
neck, he urged Bess on; he sang, he coaxed, he cheered her. Bess knew
that voice, and, catching the passion of the hour, fairly flew. Faster
and faster she went, but faster and faster came Pete at her heels--now
Job felt the hot breath of the other horse on his cheek--now they fell
back--now they were close behind him. They were near the line--but a
hundred paces and the old oak would be passed. Pete was desperate; the
fire of anger was in his eyes. Job heard one of Pete's excited friends
shout, "Throw him, Pete!" The thought of awful danger flew through
Job's mind: The angry man would do it--Bess must go faster. She was
white with foam now, but go she must. He hugged her closer; he
sang--how out of place the piece seemed! 'Twas the song, though, that
always roused her, so he sang it, as so often be had sung it in the
great oak pasture of the home ranch--"Palms of victory, crowns of
glory I shall wear,"--and, singing it, dashed across the line the
victor, while the mob yelled and Dan hugged Bess and the waiter
offered a free treat to the whole crowd. Job Malden had won the race,
the gold nugget was his, but oh, how much he had lost!




CHAPTER IV.

JANE.


    "Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie,
    Wait till the clouds roll by."

It was the clear, high voice of a rosy-cheeked, black-eyed,
short-skirted, barefooted maiden that sang, who, with her long black
tresses blowing in the afternoon breeze, and a pail on her arm, was
gayly skipping down the narrow road that separated the fence of Pine
Tree Ranch from the endless forest that stretched away towards the big
trees and Yosemite. "'Wait till the clouds'--gracious sakes, boy! what
did you scare me for?" Jane Reed cried, as out of the dark woods,
around a sugar pine, a tall, tanned lad strode, with gun over his
shoulder, and a long-eared dog at his heels.

"Oh, just for ducks!" said Job Malden, who, after a celebration of his
sixteenth birthday, was returning from one of his favorite quail hunts
with "Shot," his only playmate on Pine Tree Ranch.

"Where did you get those shoes, sissy?" said the boy, looking at her
bare, bronzed feet.

"From the Lord," quietly answered the girl.

"Humph!" said Job with a sneer, "the only lord I know is the one of
Pine Tree Mountain, and the one that is to be--that's myself--and I'm
mighty sure he or I never made such looking things."

At this, the girl made an unsuccessful attempt to run past him, then
sank down on the ground in a big cry.

With the heartless, contemptuous air of a boy who scorns tears and
girls, Job stood there; and, posing dramatically, sang in a falsetto
voice:

    "Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie,
    Wait till the clouds roll by."

I wonder, if his mother could have come back from her far-off grave by
the Sacramento, whether she would have known that insolent, rude
fellow standing there as her pretty, blue-eyed boy whom she had so
tenderly loved.

How quickly, when a fellow starts down hill, he gets under way! That
first Sunday picnic had borne its fruit. The Sunday-school at Frost
Creek never knew him now. That little Testament was at the bottom of
his trunk. Fear of the old man had saved him from an open life of
wrong, and a certain pride made him disdain to be on a level with Dan
Dean and the Gold City gang. Andrew Malden saw the change and yet did
not understand it. He never talked with people enough to hear the
rumors afloat of the Sunday horse-races, or of the midnight revel on
the Fourth of July at the Yellow Jacket. The night that Bess came home
saddleless and riderless, with the white foam on her, and when he
searched till near morning, to at last find Job stretched in a stupor
by the wayside down the Chichilla road, he thought the boy's after
story was true--that story of a frightened runaway--and little knew it
was Pete Wilkins' whisky that had thrown him.

Ah! it was only yesterday the old man had said, "She was a traitor,
and so is the boy. I have loved him, fed him, sheltered him, and yet
all he cares for is to get my money some day. The world's all alike!"
And Andrew Malden shut the door of his heart, which, a few short years
ago, had swung open for the homeless lad.

It was this boy, touched, alas! not alone by the beauty and grandeur
of the mountains, but by the shame and sin of the men who dwelt among
them, that now laughed at a poor girl's feeble wrath. He laughed, and
then a spark of innate good-nature and manhood touched him, and,
picking up the pail, he muttered an apology and offered to escort the
maiden home.

Very soon the clouds did roll by, and under the sky of twilight the
pair walked leisurely along the trail that passed out of the main
road, up across Sugar Pine Hill and down towards Blackberry Valley and
old Tom Reed's cabin, where Jane was both daughter and mistress.

This girl was so different from the crowd he had seen at Wilkins' barn
and down at Mike's, that he could not joke her; he could only play the
gallant, and he rather liked it.

It was a long way over the hill and many stops to rest--at Deer
Spring, Squirrel Run and the Summit--and the picking up cones made it
longer. It was just as they crossed the hill that they heard a
crackling of the branches above them, and both looked up to be struck
with terror. Climbing from one great tree to another was the low, dark
form of a mountain lion. He did not notice them. Job motioned silence
and shrunk into the bushes. The girl instinctively followed and drew
up close to him. With gun cocked and bated breath, they waited and
waited; but whether the wind was away from them, or the vicious animal
had something else in view, he slunk away in the trees and out toward
the Gulch, where he made his lair.

For a half hour Jane and Job sat with hearts beating fast, while both
tried to make a show of being brave. How strange it seemed to Job to
be thus protecting a girl! He felt a queer interest in her; he did not
know what it was. He took her arm a little later to help her over the
rocks, down the hill. He lingered, in a bashful way, at the spring at
the foot of the path to see that she got to the cabin door safely,
then went around by the main road home, so slowly and so thoughtfully
that the moon was high when Shot barked a response to Carlo's bark as
he entered the gate.

That was not the last time he saw Jane Reed. A something of which he
had never heard and of which he was barely conscious drew him to her.
That autumn he often walked home from school with her. When the snows
came and the logging sleds were passing every day loaded for Andrew
Malden's mill, he always managed to find Jane at Sugar Pine Hill at
all odd sorts of hours and give her a ride to the mill on the top of
the logs, and walk back with her, as he let the horses tug the old
sled slowly up the mountain. The only rival he had was Dan, his
pretended friend but certain enemy.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was at the time of the big snow. Indian Bill, the rheumatic old
native trapper whose family had perished at the massacre of the
Yosemite some years before, and who ever since had lived in a little
cabin on the edge of the Gulch, said it was the biggest in two hundred
moons.

When Job, shivering and chattering, looked out of the little, narrow,
cheerless upstairs room which he called his own, he found himself
apparently in the first story. He gazed on the endless drifts of snow
that rolled away in a silent sea over barn and fences, with only the
shaggy, white-bearded pines shaking their faces at him above the
limitless white. The little ravine back of the house, where the
milk-house stood, had leveled up to the rest of the world, the chicken
corral was missing, and only the loft of the old barn rose above the
snowy waves.

What a busy day that was of shoveling tunnels, and, with the full
force of the mill men and all the logging teams, breaking a path up
the road to the logging camp! By night the whole country round was
out. Dan was there riding the leader, and reaching out to get
snowballs from the high bank to throw at Jane, who had clambered up
on the vantage point of an old shed and was watching the queer
procession, with its shouts and rattle of bells and chains, push its
way up the road.

That night old Andy Malden gave a treat to all the hands at the mill,
with hard cider and apples and nuts a plenty, and even had Blind Dick,
the fiddler, who lived in Tom Reed's upper cabin, to help them make
merry. That is, Andy gave the treat, but his foreman was host; he
never came himself. Jane was there and Dan monopolized her. He knew
her well, so that night he never danced, never drank; but Job, poor
fellow! asked her to dance and she refused him; then he offered her
cider, and her great black eyes snapped fire and she turned from him.
He was mad with rage. He drank. He danced with the Alviso girls, the
lowest Mexicans in the county. He glared after Dan as he saw him start
off with Jane.

The cider, the jealousy in his soul, or the evil in both, probably,
made him start after them. A something whispered to take the short-cut
across to the junction of the road and Blackberry Valley trail, and
face them and have it out. He hurried stumbling over the drifts. He
hid in the shade of a great tree. Up the road he heard them coming,
heard Dan say, "Oh, well, I was afraid Uncle Andy would be fooled when
he took that kid in. Regular chip of the old block; his father went to
the bad, and he is going fast. He came from the city slums; none of
the brave, true blood of the mountains in his veins. Steer clear of
him, Jane." Heard an indistinguishable reply in Jane's voice, felt a
blind passion rising within him, clinched his fists, started with a
bound for the dark shadows coming up the road, felt a terrible blow
on his head, and--well, it must have been a long while before he
thought again. Then he was lying down in the depths of a snow-drift,
where he had fallen when he started so angrily for Dan and had struck
his head against the limb of the old oak at the turn and been hurled
back twenty feet down through the snow on the rock of the creek bed.

[Illustration: He hid in the shade of a tree.]

He tried to rise, but could not. A broken limb refused to act. He
called for help, but the cry rose no higher than the snowbank. He was
in an open grave of white on the sharp rocks and bitterly cold ice of
the stream. He shivered and shook, then gradually a sort of delightful
repose began to steal over him. At first it felt pleasant, then he
realized he was freezing, freezing to death! Death! The thought struck
terror to his heart. Death! It was the last thing for which he was
ready. Memory was unnaturally active. The New England hills, the white
church, grandfather, mother, home, all came back to him. He was
mother's boy again as in those old days before hate and drink and sin
had hurt his life. For a moment the tears came. He forgot himself, he
struggled to rise. He would go to mother and put his head in her lap
and tell her he loved her still. Then the clouds crept over the stars,
the bitter wind whistled above the snow. Mother--ah! He could not go
to her; she had gone forever out of his life; never in this world
would he see her again. And then, like a knife that cut him through
and through, came the bitter consciousness that there was no hope of
seeing mother in the world to come; that long ago he had gone away
from her and the old innocent life of childhood so far that if she
could come back from her grave by the turbid Sacramento, she would not
even know her boy.

The night chill crept over him; the tears froze on his cheeks. He
thought of Dan and Jane and the life he had lived, and love froze in
his heart. And then, alone in the snow-drift, dying, he hated Dan, he
hated Jane, he hated all the world and hated God, and waited, with the
fear of a lost soul, the outer darkness that was coming--coming nearer
and nearer.

       *       *       *       *       *

They found him there, numb and unconscious, long after midnight, Hans
and Tony, Malden's men, who had searched for him.

       *       *       *       *       *

The snow had melted on the hill-tops and the flowers were peeping
above the earth, when Job threw aside his crutches and whistled to
Shot that the time had come for another quail hunt.




CHAPTER V.

THE CAMP MEETING.


"It's the biggest thing out--beats a horse-race! My! it's a sight!
Don't miss it, boys. See you all down at Wilkins', sure."

It was "Nickel John" who was speaking, the fellow that the boys said
would do any evil deed for a nickel. It was down in front of the
Miners' Home among a great crowd of the boys, in the midst of whom
stood Job as an interested listener.

The coming event was no less than a Methodist camp-meeting down in
Coyote Valley the next Sunday. Of course he would go, said Job, as he
rode home; anything nowadays to avoid being alone with himself. Up at
the mill he told the fellows about it; and, when they dared him to be
there and go to the altar, he vowed that he would do it.

    "All hail the power of Jesus' name!
      Let angels prostrate fall."

Strong and clear, a great volume of sound, it rang out on the air that
never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning, as Job rode Bess up the Coyote
road to Pete Wilkins' barn, now transformed into a sanctuary where the
Sierra District Camp-meeting was well under way.

    "Bring forth the royal diadem,
      And crown him Lord of all."

The rafters of the barn shook with the music, while it rolled out
through the great side and rear doors, thrown open so wide that the
old building looked like outdoors with a roof on. The big structure
was full to the doors, while around it all sorts of vehicles and nags
were hitched. To the right and left rows of tents stretched away. Just
outside, under the old oak, a portly dame was dishing out lemonade for
a nickel to late-comers, while a group of boys were playing leap-frog.
Job struggled through the outer crowd and pushed inside, only to find
himself in the center of "the gang," who greeted him with a wink and a
whisper, "The speakin' racket's next!"

    "Oh, that with yonder sacred throng
      We at His feet may fall!"

How grand it sounded! Such a host of voices were singing! Far up in
front, on a platform, surrounded by several preachers, gray-haired and
young, in varied attire, from the conventional black suit and white
tie to a farmer's outfit, was a little organ, and a familiar form was
sitting back of it and getting its old bellows to roll out the hymn.
The organist was no other than Jane, and her face flushed as she
caught Job's eye.

Just then the music stopped and a sweet-faced old man stepped up and
said, "Brethren and sisters, we have knelt at the Lord's table; let us
now tell of the Lord's love. Let us have fifty testimonies in the next
few minutes. Let us sing, 'I love to tell the story of Jesus and his
love.'"

The scene faded away; the music was a far-off echo, the barn was gone.
Job was back, a lad, in the old New England church; grandsir was
there, and mother, and the old, old friends, and Ned Winthrop was
poking him with a pin. That song!--how it brought them all back!

Just then be heard a murmur behind him, and looked up to see, near the
front, a trembling old man rise and begin to speak. He told of boyhood
days; he told of a young man's sins; of how one day on the old camp
ground back in York State he had learned that God loved him and could
make a man of him. Then he faltered as he told a story of sorrows, and
how at last, alone in the world, he awaited the angels that should
bear him home.

Job trembled. Unpleasant memories arose in his heart. He grew pale and
red, then bit his lips in excitement. He wished he was at home.
Testimony followed testimony. Love, peace and joy rang through all. At
last Jane rose--could it be possible? He hung on every word.

"Last night, down there at the bench, the Lord converted my soul. I
have been a poor sinner, but I know Jesus loves me, and I wish--I
wish," and she looked over to the far rear, "you would let him save
you;" and she sat down in tears.

Job was wildly angry. "The mischief take her!" he muttered. And Dan
leaned over and whispered, "See, she's gone daft, like the rest!"

The testimonies and love-feast were over, a prayer that made Job feel
as if Some One great and good was near, had been offered, and then it
was announced that the Rev. William Pendergast of Calavero circuit
would preach.

"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul?"

It was a young, fresh, boyish face that looked into Job's as the
speaker uttered these words. Just such a bright, athletic, noble
fellow as every true boy secretly wishes to be. He caught Job's
attention and held it.

This was a very different thing from what he had thought sermons to
be. The young man talked of life here, not hereafter; he showed how a
man may live in this world and yet live a lost life; have gold and
lands, and yet lose all love and hope and peace and manhood. He
pictured the man who gains wealth and grows hard and loveless, and Job
thought of Andy Malden; he told of him who plunges into dissipation
and drink, and lingers a wreck in the streets, and Job knew he meant
Yankee Sam. Aye, he pictured a young life that grasps all the world
and forgets right and God and mother's Bible and mother's prayers, and
grows selfish and the slave of hate and trembles lest death come, and
Job thought of himself and the awful night in the snow and wished he
was miles away.

But wait! They are singing:

    "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
      Weak and wounded, sick and sore."

They have cleared the mourners' bench and are giving the invitation:

    "Jesus ready stands to save you,
      Full of pity, love and power."

Job trembles. Does that mean him? Tim Nolan the mill-man leans over
and whispers almost out loud: "Remember your bet, Job!"

Poor Job would have given all the gold in the Sierras to be out of
there. All the sins of his life rose before him, all his conceit and
boasting vanished. He was ashamed of Job Malden. He longed to sink
somewhere out of sight.

The preacher was talking again; the old, old story of the Prodigal Son
and how God's arms are always ready to take in a mother's lost boy.
The room swam before Job's eyes. The crowds were flocking to the
altar, the people were shouting, the boys were punching him and
saying. "Yer dursn't go!" Heaven, hell, sin and Christ were very real
to him all of a sudden.

    "All the fitness he requireth
    Is to feel your need of him."

How it happened he never knew, but just as Dan said, "Now, let's see
Job get religion," he rose, and, striding down the long aisle, he
rushed to the altar, and there, just where he had taken his first
drink on that awful Sunday, he threw himself in tears, a big,
heart-broken boy, with the thought of his evil life throbbing through
his brain.

It was late that night when Job left the camp ground, flung himself
across Bess' back and started home. The stars never looked down on a
happier boy. The burden, the hate, the bitterness in his heart, were
all gone. A holy love, an exaltation of soul, an awakening of all that
is best in a manly life, stirred him. The past was gone; "old things
had passed away and all things had become new." The world was the
same. Dan, with all his meanness, was in it. The saloon doors were
open, the gamblers still sat at midnight at the Monte Carlo. Grizzly
county had not changed, but he had. A new life was his.

As he galloped down the road, far away he heard them singing:

    "Palms of victory, crowns of glory, I shall wear,"

and a strange feeling came over him. He took up the refrain, and,
looking up at the stars, he seemed to see his mother's face afar off
among the flashing worlds. The tears stole down his cheeks, tears of
joy, as, galloping on through the night toward home, again he sang:

    "Palms of victory, crowns of glory, I shall wear."




CHAPTER VI.

THE DEANS.


It was a little, long, low, unpainted shanty, with a rude doorstep,
almost hid amid a jungle of vines and overarching trees at the end of
a long lane, where Marshall Dean lived. A sallow-faced, thin
Kentuckian, he had come up here from the plains after his sister
married Andrew Malden, in the hope that being near a rich relative
would save him from unnecessary labor. Andrew Malden had given him a
good place at the mill, but he found it too hard on his muscles, and
so decided to "ranch it." Malden had then given him the old Jones
ranch and a start; but as the years drifted by he had not succeeded in
raising much except a numerous family of dirty, unkempt youngsters of
whom Dan was the oldest and the most promising specimen, the one who
had inherited his father's pride and selfishness, with a certain
natural shrewdness and sagacity that his mother's family possessed,
but of which she had failed to receive much.

While Malden's wife lived, they managed to silently share in the
income of Pine Tree Ranch, but after she died the smuggling business
between the big place and Dean's Lane suddenly stopped. Nothing ever
cut deeper--they could never forgive her for dying. At last they
settled down to a stolid, long wait for the old man's end. The chief
theme of conversation at home was the uncertainties of life for the
"old miser," and the sure probability of their move some day on to the
big ranch, though not one of them knew what they would do with it if
they got it. Dan felt no hesitation about telling this at school, and
it was common gossip of the county.

But alas! the night Dan came home and excitedly told the family, as
they looked up from their rough board table and bacon and mush and
molasses, that "the old man had taken Teale's kid in, sure he had,"
consternation seized them. It took them weeks to rally; and, when they
did, for the first time in their history the family had an object in
life, and that was to make life miserable for Job.

Unsuspecting and innocent, the twelve-year-old lad had gone over to
play with the Dean children, as he would at any home, till the time
when petty persecutions culminated in all the rude youngsters calling
him vile names and throwing stones at him, and the father standing by
and drawling out, "Give it to him, the ornery critter!"

Annoyance followed annoyance. Job's pets always got hurt or
disappeared. Dick, his first pony, was accidentally lamed for life;
the big dog he romped with was found dead from poison. All the
mischief in the neighborhood was eventually laid at Job's door. For a
long time the boy systematically avoided the Deans, till by some
strange political fortune Marshall Dean was appointed postmaster for
the Pine Mountain post-office. That was a gala day in Deans' Lane.
Sally Dean had a brand-new dress on the strength of it, and Dan gave
himself more airs than ever before. After that Job was obliged to go
to the Deans' twice a week for the mail, and more than once went away
with the suspicion that Andrew Malden's mail had been well inspected
before it left the office.

The wrath of the Dean family reached its culmination on that Sunday
night when Dan came home with the news that Job had attended the
Coyote Valley camp-meeting and had been converted; "now he would be
putting on holy airs and setting himself above folks." That night in
Dean's shanty Sally and Dan and "Pap" put their heads together to plan
how they could in some way make Job Malden backslide.

It was toward this house that Job was making his way, on the very next
week, bound for the semi-weekly mail. As he went up the path old Dean
himself rose to meet him; and, putting up his pipe, remarked on the
"uncommon fine morning." As he pushed open the shanty door, Mrs. Dean
and fifteen-year-old Sally were all smiles. The postman had brought no
mail, the former said, but wouldn't he stay and rest? She had heard
the Methodists were having a fandango down in the valley. Queer
people, whose religion consisted in shouting and jumping. As for her,
she believed in practical religion; she paid her honest debts and
didn't set herself up above her neighbors.

Job was just leaving, when Mrs. Dean said:

"Oh, you mustn't go without drinking to Sally's health--she's fifteen
to-day. See what a big girl she is--what rosy cheeks and big hands!
Come, we have the finest cider out; just drink with us to Sally's
health."

"Why, excuse me, ma'am," stammered Job, quite bewildered by this
sudden good nature and the invitation to drink. "Why--I can't drink
any more--I--"

"Oh, my!" said Mrs. Dean. "You're all straight! This won't be too
much, if you have drank before this afternoon."

"Oh, but--" stammered Job, "I don't mean that. I don't drink any
more--I have joined the Methodists and been converted."

"Such a likely boy as you gone and jined the fools! Surely Andy
Malden don't know it, does he?"

"Why--no," stammered Job.

"Waal, now, purty feller you are, to take your bread and butter from
Andy Malden, and then go and disgrace him by joinin' the hypocrites
and never tellin' him, and then comin' round here and refusin' to
drink harmless apple juice with our Sally! Puttin' yourself up above
respectable people like us, whose parents lie in respectable graves."

Job faltered. That speech cut. The hot blood came to his brow. A week
ago he would have lost his temper, but now he bit his lip and kept
still.

Then the woman's mood changed. She wished him no ill luck, she said,
and surely he would be good enough if he was as good as his Master,
and she "'lowed that Christ drank wine at a wedding spread onct.
Surely he wouldn't refuse a little cider with Sally?"

Perhaps it would be best. Perhaps he was trying to be too good. Aye,
perhaps one drink would give him a good chance to escape. So Job
thought, and he took the glass. But then came a vision of that bar at
the horse-race, of that cider at Malden's mill, and the winter night
and the snow, and his hand in his pocket touched the old temperance
pledge he had signed again on Sunday night when he got home, and up
from his heart went a silent cry for help. At that, he seemed to hear
a voice saying, "With every temptation, a way of escape," and he said
in a firm voice, as he sat down the glass:

"Best wishes for Sally, Mrs. Dean, but I cannot drink the cider."

Just then a shrill cry from outside sent both Sally and her mother
flying to help rescue three-year-old Ross, whose father was hauling
him out of the well.

In the excitement, Job started home with a light heart, singing to
himself:

     "Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin, Each victory
     will help you some other to win."




CHAPTER VII.

THE OLD MAN'S BIRTHDAY.


They were sitting together at Pine Tree Ranch, on the side porch of
the neat little white farmhouse, over which the vines were trained and
from which the well-kept lawn and flower-bordered walks rolled away to
the white picket fence. It was a late August evening, which had merged
from sunset into moonlight so softly and quietly that one hardly knew
when the one began and the other ended. Job, in old coat and overalls
and a broken straw hat, just as he had come in from his evening
chores, sat on the veranda's edge. Back of him, in a low-bottomed, old
cane rocker, was Andrew Malden in a rough suit of gray, his white
beard reaching far down on his breast, while his silver locks were
blowing in the breeze.

For once, at least, he was opening his heart and memory to the lad
whom he secretly loved; the lad who often wondered why the latch
string of Pine Tree Ranch was out for him, and what matter would it be
if some day, when he and Bess went off over the Chichilla hills, they
never came back again.

To-night the old man was talkative. It was his birthday and he was in
retrospective mood. "Seventy to-night, Job--just to think of it!
Twenty years more, perhaps, and then--well, a coffin, I suppose, and
six feet of ground--and that's all," he said.

Job wanted to say, "And heaven," but he did not dare. And then a
thought startled him: Was this man, who had gained this world, ready
for any other?

For an hour Andrew Malden rambled on. He talked of the Mexican war;
told of Vera Cruz and the battle of Monterey. "Bravest thing you ever
saw, boy. One of those Greasers rode square up to our line and flung a
taunt in our faces, and rode away in disdain, while all our batteries
opened on him."

He came to the close of the war stories, when he suddenly stopped and
grew silent, puffed at an old pipe, rose and walked back and forth. He
was thinking of that day when he had come back so proudly to claim
Mary Moore, and had found the blow under which he had staggered for
nearly forty years.

"You've heard of Lincoln, my boy--old Abe Lincoln? Well, I knew him
when we were boys," he said, as he sat down again. Then he told story
after story of the long, lean, lank Kentucky boy, who rode a raft down
the Mississippi and helped clear the frontier forests; the boy who was
one day to strike a blow for right that would shake a continent.

Andrew Malden laughed till Job caught the contagion and laughed, too,
as story followed story. Then, after another silence, he went on
again:

"Dead! Abe Lincoln's dead, and Zach Taylor's dead--and so the world
goes. 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' the Bible says. My father
used to read it to us boys, when I was your age. It's true, my boy.
Have as little to do with the world as you can, except to get an
honest living out of it--a living anyway. Don't love anybody. It don't
pay."

The old man faltered. He got up and paced the porch again, then,
coming back, he put his hand on the boy's shoulder, and, looking into
his face, said:

"Job, I want to tell you something; seems as if I must to-night."

And there in the clear moonlight, interrupted only by Shot's
occasional growl, and the distant hoot of an owl or bark of a coyote,
Andrew Malden told his life story to the boy at his side, the boy who
was just passing up to young manhood. He told of Mary Moore; of the
weary tramp behind an ox-team across the prairies and Nevada desert;
of that snow-bound winter near Denver Lake; of the early days of Gold
City. He told of his son who slept beneath the graveyard pines; of his
own lonely life in the mountains; then he came to that night when he
had brought this boy home. He put his arm around the lad as he talked
of his interest in him and how he had known more of his sins and
downward life than Job ever dreamed.

"Now," he said, "they tell me you have joined the Methodists--have got
religion or whatever you call it. Stick to it, boy. Andy Malden's too
old to ever change his views. You may be right or not, but anyway I'd
rather see you go to Methodist meetin' than Pete's saloon. You're
going to have a hard time of it, boy; these pesky Deans, who owe all
they are to me, hate you because you are mine. As long as you live
with Andy Malden, you will have to suffer. Sometimes I think it ain't
worth while--what do you care for an old man?"

Again the voice ceased, and Job trembled, he hardly knew why.

"Boy," up spoke the old man again, "boy, it isn't worth while! I will
give you a bag of nuggets, and you can take Bess and go to-morrow down
to the city and get some learnin' and be somethin', and be out of this
everlastin' quarrelsome world of Grizzly county, and never see the
Deans again. I will stand it; I lived alone before you came, and I
suppose I can do it again. Only a few years and I will be gone; God
knows where--if there is a God."

By this time Job was choked with emotion. All his nature was aroused.
He fairly loved this strange old man. Looking up, he begged him not to
send him away; stay he would, whatever it cost; and he would be as
true a son to him as a strong young fellow could.

At that, the old man rose, went into the house, and came back with
something that glittered in his hand.

"Take this, Job, put it in your hip-pocket, and the first time any one
of the Deans, big or little, insults you, put a bullet through him."

Job shrank back at sight of the revolver.

"No! Oh, no! I can't take that! Down at the camp-meeting I promised
God to love my enemies, uncle. I can't take that."

Then Job poured out his heart to Andrew Malden. He told of his
conversion, of his trust in God, and that he was no longer afraid of
the Deans or of anything.

"Humph! humph!", said the old man. "Well, I won't argue with you, boy;
but as for me, I'd rather trust my hip-pocket when I have to deal with
the people of Grizzly county. Do as you please. But I'll keep this
revolver, and death to the man that harms a hair of Job Malden, the
only one in all the world that Andy Malden loves."

The old man's voice trembled, and he walked into the house and shut
the door; and Job knew the talk was over for that night.

Whistling to Shot, he and the dog stole upstairs to Job's little bare
room, where a few wood-cuts hung on the wall, and a long, narrow
bedstead, a chair, and a box that served for table, were the only
furniture. He took the little Testament from under his pillow and
lovingly kissed it; then turning, he read for his good-night lesson
from his new-found divine Friend: "Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end
of the world."

Kneeling a moment for a good-night prayer, he was soon in bed and
asleep, with Shot curled up on the covers at his feet, while through
the open window the sound of a guitar came where one of the mill hands
was playing the tune of

    "Hush, my child, lie still and slumber,
      Holy angels guard thy bed."




CHAPTER VIII.

OFF TO THE BIG TREES.


The radical change that had come into Job's life cut him off from the
companions of other days and left him without a chum. It showed the
manliness of his nature that as he started out in the new life,
seeing quickly that he must part company with the old companions who
had nearly wrecked his life, he acted on the conviction at once.

Perhaps it was this, perhaps the fact that his life was now almost
altogether on the ranch, that made Job and Bess boon companions. Many
a mountain trip they took together. It was on one of these that they
went to the Big Trees. That bright September morning, gayly attired
with new sombrero and red bandanna above his white outing-shirt,
astride Bess, Job rode slowly up the Chichilla mountain on his way to
visit those giant trees. Up by "Doc" Trainer's place, over the smooth,
hard county turnpike, where the toll-road, ever winding round and
round the mountain-side, climbs on through the passes of the live-oak
belt to the scraggly pines of the low hills, on to the endless giant
forests of the cloud-kissed summits, the young horseman made his way.
Now and then the road descended to a little ravine, where a mountain
torrent had torn a path to the deep cañons below: again it stretched
through a dim, royal archway of green where the great trees linked
branches as over a king's pathway; and then it turned a bend where the
steep sides sank so suddenly that even the trees had no foothold and
the bare space disclosed a view over boundless forests of dark green,
and the vast, yawning cañons and distant rolling hills, to where,
far-off, like some dream of the past, one caught glimpses of the
endless plains covered with the autumn haze and golden in the morning
sunlight.

The grandeur of the scenery, the roar of the brook in deep cañons
below, whose echo he caught from afar, the exhilarating ride, the
fresh morning breeze, combined with the spiritual experiences of his
nature, which were daily deepening, to rouse all the poetry in Job's
soul, of which he had more than the average rough country lad who rode
over those eternal hills. He shouted, he whistled patriotic airs and
snatches of the popular songs he heard on the Gold City streets; then
the old songs of church and the heart-life came to him, and he sang
them, while he laid his head over on Bess' neck as she silently
climbed ever higher and higher.

Suddenly Bess gave a start that nearly threw him, as the delicate form
of a deer rose behind a fallen tree. For an instant the beautiful
animal stood looking with great soft eyes in a bewildered stare at the
cause of his sudden awakening, then plunged his horns into the bushes
and leaped away down the mountain-side.

Job quickly reached for his rifle, only to discover what he well
knew--that it was far away at home; of which he was glad as he thought
of those tender, pleading eyes, and a great love for the harmless
creature, the forests, the mountains and all the world welled up in
his soul. "My!" he said, "I'd like to hug that deer! I'd like to hug
everything, everybody! I used to hate them; I would even hug Dan.
Bess, dear old girl, I'll just love you!" and he flung his arms around
her neck and hummed away as they passed up the hill.

Soon a turn in the road brought them to the summit, where for a moment
the trees part and one catches glimpses of the long winding road over
which one has come, and the ever-rolling forests beyond, climbing far
up to a still higher ridge that reaches toward the Yosemite and the
high Sierras. The view thrilled Job. The psalm he had learned for last
Sunday came to him. He repeated it solemnly with cap off, as he sat
still on Bess' back: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from
whence cometh my help; my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven
and earth."

[Illustration: "Father of the Forest," Calaveras Grove.]

Only a moment be paused, and then started on a gallop down the hill.
The ring of Bess' feet on the hard road scared the shy gray squirrels,
which ran chattering up the tall pines, leaving their feast of nuts on
the ground beneath.

A few minutes later and all the solemnity of his soul and the beauty
of the forests was sadly interrupted as he rode round a curve and came
out at the junction of the Signal Point and the Yosemite toll-road.

There stood, or lay rather, half on its side, a rickety, old
two-seated structure shaded by white canvas supported by four
rough-hewn posts. It leaned far to the side on one wheel and a
splintered hub. Down the hill a broken wheel was bounding; while, on
the dusty road, four women--one tall and angular in a yellow duster,
one little and weazened, arrayed in a prim gray traveling suit, a
weeping maiden of uncertain age, and a portly dame of ponderous
proportions, dressed not in a duster but a very dusty black silk--were
pulling themselves up. Near by three little tots were howling
vigorously, yet making no impression on the poor, lone, lank white
mare which stood stock still in the shafts, with a contented air that
showed an immense satisfaction in the privilege of one good stop.

"Mary Jane, this is awful! Every bone in me is cracked and this silk
dress is ruined--yes, is ruined! I tell yer it ain't fit for Mirandy's
little gal's doll! And my! I know my heart is broken, too; I can hear
it rattle! I'll never come with you and that horrid runaway horse
again!"

The poor horse flapped her ears as if in appreciation of this last
remark, while Mary Jane, rising up like a yellow-draped beanpole,
retorted in a shrill voice:

"Aunt Eliza, ain't you ashamed to be deriding me, a poor lone widder
with three helpless children! I hope ye are cracked--cracked bad!
Horse, humph! I guess my horse is the likeliest in Grizzly county! Yer
know yer made all the trouble; any decent wheel would give way when it
had a square mile of bones and stuffin's and silk above it!"

"Now, sister Mary and Aunt Eliza," spoke up, in a thin, metallic
voice, that of the diminutive dame in gray, as she adjusted her bonnet
strings, "let us not grow unduly aggravated at the disconcerting
providence which has overwhelmed us in the journey of life. There are
compensating circumstances which should alleviate our sorrow. Our
lives are spared, and the immeasurable forests are undisturbed by the
trifling event which has overtaken us poor, insignificant creatures,
whose--"

"Insignificant!" roared Aunt Eliza, "I guess I ain't insignificant! I
own twenty town lots down in Almedy, as purty as yer ever saw.
Insignificant! I--the mother of ten children and goodness knows how
many grandchildren! And as for them trees that yer say yer can't
measure, I'd rather see the clothes-poles in Sally's back yard!"

"Yes," chimed in Mary Jane, "and 'trifles' yer call it, for a poor
woman that raises spuds and washes clothes for the men at the mines
for a livin', to lose her fine coach Pete built the very year he took
sick of the heart-failure and died, and left me a lone widder in a
cold and friendless world!" At which she wiped her eyes with the
yellow duster.

"'Trifles'!" cried Aunt Eliza again. "'Trifles,' for us poor guileless
wimmen to be left here alone in the wilderness, twenty mile from a
livin' creature, and nobody knows what wild animals and awful men may
come along any minute!"

For a moment Job halted Bess and watched the scene. An almost
uncontrollable desire to laugh possessed him; but, restraining
himself, he took the first chance he had to make his presence known,
at which Aunt Eliza groaned, "Oh, my!" and Mary Jane instinctively
grasped her yelling children, and the prim spinster curtsied and asked
if he used tobacco. At Job's surprised look and negative reply, she
said, "Very well. I never employ a male being who permeates his
environment with the noxious weed. As you do not, I will offer you
proper remuneration if you will assist us in this unforeseen
calamity."

Assuring her that he would, without pay, do all he could, Job went to
work. It was well on in the day ere, by his repeated errands down to
the big hotel barn some distance below, he had procured enough
material to get the rickety old structure in order and help Aunt Eliza
back up its high side to the seat she had left so unceremoniously that
morning. The last he heard, as the white horse slowly pulled out of
sight through the forest, was Aunt Eliza's, "Go slow, Mary Jane, for
mercy's sake! Don't let her run away!" while the prim spinster shouted
back in a high key, "Good-by, young man! You're a great credit to your
sex;" and Mary Jane, pounding the poor mare vigorously, yelled,
"G'lang! Get up! We'll never get home!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was nearer sunset than it should have been when Job reached the
sign-board far up the toll-road that read, "To the Big Trees." Putting
spurs to Bess, he galloped on at a rapid pace for a mile or more, when
he became conscious that the sugar pines and cedars were giving place
to strange trees which had loomed up before him so gradually that he
was not aware the far-famed Sequoias, the giants of the forest, were
all about him.

A dim, strange light filled the place. The twilight was coming fast in
that far, lonely spot shaded by the close ranks of the Titanic forms.
He walked Bess slowly down the shadowy corridor along the line of
those straight giants, whose tapering spires seemed lost in heaven's
blue.

How long it took to pass a tree! Bess and he were but toys beside
them, yet he could scarcely realize their vastness till he slid off
her back, and, throwing the rein over her neck, started around one,
and lost Bess from view as he turned the corner and walked a full
hundred feet before he had encircled the monster. How ponderous the
bark, how strangely small the cones!

Mounting Bess, he rode down through the vast aisle of these monarchs
of the mountains. A feeling of awe came over him. The world of Gold
City and strife and jealousy and struggle, the realm of Mary Jane and
Aunt Eliza, the world of petty humanity, seemed far away. He was alone
with God and the eternities. Silent he stood, with bared head, and
looked along the monster trunks that stretched far up, up, up, towards
where the soft blue of evening twilight seemed to rest on them for
support. He found himself praying--he could not help it. It was the
litany of his soul rising with Nature's silent prayer: "Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." All through he said it, to
the reverent "Amen," then, putting on his hat, rode on toward the
farther grove.

[Illustration: "Grizzly Giant," Mariposa Grove.]

On he went past "Grizzly Giant," standing lone and bare, its foliage
gone, its old age come--"Grizzly Giant," which was old before Christ
was born; on by vigorous saplings, already rivals of the biggest
pines. One time-worn veteran had succumbed to some Titanic stroke of
Nature's power and lay prostrate on the ground. Decay and many
generations of little denizens of the forest had hollowed its great
trunk like some vast tunnel. Job, looking in, could see the light in
the distance.

It was big enough for Bess and him--he was sure it was; he would try
it. So, whispering lovingly to the horse, he rode into the gaping
monster, rode through the dark heart of the old giant, clear to the
other end and on into daylight. Enthused by his achievement, Job
hurried on down the road and around the great curve, to see looming up
before him "Wawona," far-famed Wawona, the portal of the silent
cathedral through whose wide-spreading base and under whose towering
form a coach and six can drive.

The sun was down, the shadows were fast gathering, the great trees
were retreating one by one in the gloom, when Job found the little
one-roomed log cabin with open door where he had planned to spend the
night. Unsaddling Bess and giving her the bag of grain on the back of
the saddle, hurriedly eating a lunch, and gathering some sticks for a
fire in the old stone fireplace in case he needed one, throwing a
drink into his mouth, Indian style, from the spring just back of the
cabin, he prepared for the night. A little later, tying Bess securely
to the nearest sapling, he closed the cabin door behind him, rolled
down the old blankets he found there, and lay down to sleep.

How dark it was! How still the world! A feeling of intense loneliness
stole over Job, and then a sense of God's nearness soothed him and he
fell asleep.

It must have been after midnight when he awoke with a start, a feeling
of something dreadful filling him. He listened. All was still save for
Bess' occasional pawing near by. Then he heard a sound that set the
blood curdling in his veins, that sent his hair up straight, and made
his heart beat like an engine--from far off in the mountains came a
weird, heart-breaking cry as of a lost child.

Job knew it well. It was the call of a mountain lion. Again it came,
but nearer on the other side. It was voice answering voice. Bess
snorted, pawed, and seemed crazed. What should he do? He trembled,
hesitated; then, breathing a prayer, he hurriedly opened the cabin
door, cut Bess' rope, led her in through the low portal, barred the
door behind, and, soothing her with low whispers of tenderness, tied
her to the further wall of the cabin, and crept back into bed. Then he
lay and waited breathlessly for another cry, and thought all was well,
till in a distant moan, far down the road, he heard it again.

For a moment fear almost overpowered him; then the old Psalm
whispered, "He that keepeth thee will not slumber nor sleep." A sweet
consciousness of the absolute safety of God's children stole over the
youth; and catching, from a rift in the roof, one glimpse of the stars
struggling through the tree tops, he turned over and fell asleep as
peacefully as if in his bed at home.




CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS SUNDAY.


It was Christmas Sunday when Job was received into full membership in
the quaint old Gold City Methodist church. Snow was on the ground, and
sleigh bells rang through the air. All day long the streets had been
reverberating with that essential of a California Christmas, the
fire-cracker. As the preacher came over from Hartsville, the service
was in the evening.

The old building looked really fine in its new dress of holly berries,
mistletoe and cedar. Across the front was hung in big red and white
letters, "Unto us a Child is Born." Over the organ was suspended a
large gilt star.

The place was crowded that night. The double fact that it was
Christmas, and that the camp-meeting converts would be baptized,
brought everybody out.

     "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"

sang the choir as Job, dressed in a neat new suit of gray and "store"
shirt, entered the church, making a way for Andy Malden, who, for the
first time in untold years, had crossed the threshold of the
meeting-house. The arrival, a few minutes before, of Slim Jim the
gambler, who hung around the Monte Carlo, and Col. Dick, its
proprietor, had not attracted so much attention as the entrance of
"Jedge Malden," as the politicians called him who sought his political
influence.

The preacher, as he looked down on that audience, was amazed. He had
seen no such scene in this old church since, with faint heart, he had
first stood in its plain pulpit as pastor. The walls were lined with
all the representative characters of the town, good and bad, rich and
poor; merchants, bar-keepers, politicians and miners. In the center
the old-time church-goers sat. Up the front, filling every inch of
space, the starched and well-washed youngsters wriggled and grinned
and sang without fear, as hymn after hymn was announced.

All soon caught the spirit of the hour, and a general feeling of
good-nature settled down on all. In fact, the place fairly trembled
with good-will, as a class of boys marched to the platform and sang:

    "The Christmas bells are ringing over land and sea,
    The winter winds are bringing their merry notes to me,"

and the wee tots involuntarily turned to the rear as they ended with
almost a yell:

    "Then shout, boys, shout!
      Shout with all your might;
    For Merry Christmas's at the door,
      He's coming here to-night!"

On the programme went--recitations, songs, choruses, following close
after one another. A fairy-like girl, with all childhood's innocence,
told anew the old story of Bethlehem and the Christ Child. The tears
stole down some rough cheeks as the memories of long-gone childhood's
Christmas days came back to them.

The wee tots had sung their last hymn, when the preacher began his
sermon on the angel's song that echoes still each Christmas over all
the world: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will
toward men." For twenty minutes he talked of glory, peace,
good-will--those things so sadly lacking in many lives before him;
talked till each face grew solemn, and Slim Jim looked as if he was
far away in some distant memory-world. Andy Malden seemed to hear
Peter Cartright, as he had heard him in his father's cabin when a boy,
and remembered for the first time in years the night he had promised
the eccentric old preacher he would be a Christian--a promise that had
been drowned by the drum-beat of the old war days and the
disappointment of a lifetime.

As the preacher finished, every man and woman there made a silent
resolution to be better-natured and pay their debts and make life a
little brighter for somebody. But, alas! resolutions are easily
broken.

"The candidates for baptism will please come forward," said the
parson.

Up they rose, old and young; Tim Dennis, the cobbler; aged Grandpa
Lewis; a score of both sexes. Around the altar they stood, a long
semicircle; and, as it so happened, Jane at one end, and Job, with
serious, manly air, at the other.

Question after question of the ritual was asked. Clear and strong came
the answers. "Wilt thou renounce the devil and all his works?" Jane
nodded yes--how little she knew of the devil! Job answered loudly, "I
will"--how much he did know! "The vain pomp and glory of the world?"
continued the minister; and old Mrs. Smith, who lived alone in the
hollow back of the church and had had such a struggle of soul to give
up the flowers on her hat that she fancied were too worldly,
responded, "Yes," with a groan. "Wilt thou be baptized in this faith?"
asked the preacher at last. A unanimous chorus answered, "I will,"
and, taking the bowl in his hand, he passed down the line of the now
kneeling forms and administered the sacred ordinance. Job was last.
Leaning over, the parson asked his name, then there rang out through
the church, as the eager throng leaned forward to hear and Andrew
Malden poked the floor with his cane, "Job Teale Malden, I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen."

The service was over. The crowds were pouring out the door, the
organist was playing "Marching Through Georgia" on the wheezy organ as
the liveliest thing she knew, the people were wishing each other
"Merry Christmas," as Job, hurrying out of the church, felt a touch on
his shoulder, and, looking up, saw Slim Jim the gambler.

"Job, come out here. I have something to tell you," said he.

Pushing through the throng, they crept around the church in the dark,
when Jim, putting his hand on the youth's shoulder, said:

"Job, I remember the night you came to Gold City, what a poor,
homeless lad you were! I remember the day you won the horse-race and I
said, 'The devil's got the kid now sure.' And now I am so glad, Job,
that you've gone and done the square thing. I helped bury your father,
and I tell you he was a fine fellow--a gentleman, if he had only let
the drink and cards alone. Oh, Job, never touch them! You think it's
strange, perhaps, but I was good once, far off in old Pennsylvania. I
was a mother's boy, and went to church, and--Job, would you believe
it?--I was going to be a preacher!--I, poor Slim Jim that nobody cares
for, now. But I wanted to get rich, and I came to Gold City. I learned
to play cards, and--well, here I am. No help for me--Slim Jim's lost
this world and his soul, too. But you're on the right track, and, if
when you die and go up there where those things shine,"--and he
pointed through the pines to the starlit sky--"you meet a little,
sweet old lady with white hair and a gray dress knitting a pair of
socks, tell her that her Jamie never forgot her and would give the
best hand he ever had to feel her kiss once more and hear her say
good-night. Tell her--listen, boy!--tell her it was the cards that
ruined Jamie, but he's her Jamie still." And with tears on his face
and in his voice, the tall, pale wreck of manhood hurried off in the
darkness, leaving Job alone in the gloom.

It was late that night when Job said his prayer by his bed at home,
but he made it long enough to put in one plea for Slim Jim.




CHAPTER X.

THE COVE MINE.


It is six miles from Pine Tree Ranch to the Cove Mine. You go over
Lookout Point, from where El Capitan and the outline of the Yosemite
can be easily seen on a clear day, down along the winding upper ridge
of the Gulch, up again over the divide near Deer Spring and down along
the zigzag trail on the steep side of Big Bear Mountain, then down to
the very waters of the south fork of the Merced; just six miles to
where, in the depth of the cañon, lies Wright's Cove Mine. In all the
far-famed Sierras there can be no more picturesque spot. If one will
take the trouble to climb the almost perpendicular ridge that rises
two thousand feet behind the old tumble-down buildings, long, low
cook-houses and superintendent's vine-covered cottage, along that
narrow, half-destroyed trail that follows the rusty tracks and cogs
and cable of an old railroad, up to the first and then on further to
the second tunnel, where a few deserted ore-cars stand waiting the
trains that never come, on still higher to the narrow ridge that
separates the south fork from the north fork of the Merced River, he
is rewarded with a view worth a long trip to see.

Let him stand there at sunset in the early spring and he has seen a
view worthy of the land of the Jung Frau and Mt. Blanc. All around,
the white-topped peaks of the high Sierras; far away, the snow banner
waving over the Yosemite; to the left of him, far below, like a river
of gold, sending up hither a faint murmur as it rushes over giant
boulders and innumerable cataracts, the North Fork, hurrying from that
ice-bound gorge which is the wonder of the Sierras; to the right, on
the other side, dancing down from the far-off Big Trees, threading the
tangled jungles of the Gulch, coming out through the dark green forest
like a rim of molten silver, roaring down past the quaint little
mining settlement, which looks half hid in partly-melted snow banks
like some Swiss village, comes the south fork of the river,
disappearing behind the mountain on which one stands.

The rushing stream, whose music is like some far-off echo; the strange
deserted village; the narrow line of dark rails up the mountain-side
through the snow; the gloomy, cavernous tunnels; the setting sun in
the west gilding all with its transfiguring touch--these give a scene
worthy the brush of a master-artist, who has never yet found his way
over the Pine Mountain trail to the South Fork and Wright's Cove Mine.

It was just such a day in spring as this, as Job came whistling down
the trail, gun in hand, looking for deer-tracks, that he thought he
heard the report of a gun up in the second tunnel. He had often been
there before; had climbed the trail and the cog railroad, played
around and over the deserted buildings, and gone swimming off the iron
bridge where the torrent was deepest. Once he and Dolph Swartz, a
neighbor boy, had slept all night in the tool-house shed, waiting for
game, and had seen only what Dolph was sure was a ghost--so sure that
he hurried Job home at daybreak with a vow that he would never stay at
Wright's Cove another night.

Job knew the place well, yet on this spring day he stopped and looked
mystified. There it was again! Who could be in the second tunnel with
a gun? Was it the spirit of some poor forty-niner come back again? He
doubled his speed, slid down through the mud and slush, grasped a
sapling and leaped down the short cut, ran up the bank and rocky sides
of the roaring torrent, walked carefully over the slippery iron rails
of the old rusty bridge, and made his way up the steep Tunnel Trail.

Soon he was close to the tunnel, so far up that the river's noise was
lost behind him. He stopped and listened. Not a sound. Then clean and
strong the ring of a gun, and a dull echo in the dim cavern!

All kinds of thoughts rushed through Job's head. He was not a
superstitious boy, yet this was enough to make anybody feel queer--all
alone in that deserted wilderness, with the echo of a gun coming out
of the lonely mine, unworked for years and into which no human
footstep had penetrated since the day that old Wright shot himself in
the tunnel when he found that the mine which had paid big at first and
into which he had put all his income, was a failure. Job had heard the
boys tell that Indian Bill, the trapper, said he had seen the old
fellow's skeleton marching up and down with gun in hand, two hundred
feet down the tunnel, defending it against all intruders. Perhaps that
was the ghost now! Would he dare to go? His flesh crept at the
thought. He wished Shot was with him, or at least some living thing.
Again he heard the report. His courage rose. He would face the thing,
whatever it was.

Creeping up slowly and noiselessly, he reached the entrance to the
tunnel and looked in. All was as dark as the grave. A cold draft
rushed out over him. He could hear the drip, drip, of water from the
roof. At first he thought he saw something moving in the distance,
then he was not sure. He decided he would turn back; then curiosity
was too much for him; he began to whistle and walked boldly into the
darkness, followed the rotten ties, when, lo! he saw a flash of
light, heard a thundering report, and, involuntarily giving a yell,
started to run, when a familiar voice shouted:

"Job, Job, come here!"

He turned, and there loomed up before him, to his utter amazement, the
form of Andrew Malden.

The old man was evidently disconcerted and angry at being found, while
the boy was utterly dumfounded.

"Wait a minute, Job; I'll go home with you," said Malden, as he took
out the queerest charge Job had ever seen in a gun--a load of gold
dust, which he carefully rammed down the barrel, then, bidding Job
look out, fired into the rock.

"Why, what are you doing that for?" stammered the boy.

"Oh, salting the mine, just so it will keep," laughed Andrew Malden--a
strange, hoarse laugh. "But mind, Job, nobody needs to know I did it.
The mine will keep better if they don't."

As they passed out, Job noticed that the wall of the mine glittered in
a way he had never seen before. What did it all mean? He dared ask no
more questions of Andrew Malden. Almost in silence they climbed down
the old trail, edged across the bridge, and strode with a steady pace
up the long six miles over the Point to their home.

"What's 'salting a mine,' Tony?" asked Job of the black hostler one
day a week after.

"Doan' know, Marse Job, unless it's doctoring the critter so you can
make somebody believe it's worth a million, when it ain't worth a
rabbit's hind foot. Tony's up to better bizness than salting mines."

"Who owns the Cove Mine, Tony?"

"Why, Marse Malden, I 'spec," said the surprised negro.

That evening Job looked at his guardian with a queer feeling as they
sat down to supper, and that night he heard gun-shots in his dreams,
and awoke with a shiver and waited for something to happen. He was
conscious of impending trouble. Something was wrong.

       *       *       *       *       *

It had been a hard winter in Grizzly county, and throughout the whole
country, for that matter; a hard winter, following a fatal summer
which closed with crops a failure on the plains, the stunted grain
fields uncut, and the whole country paralyzed. The cities were full of
men out of work. The demand for lumber had fallen off, and the Pine
Mountain Mill was idle over half the time. The pessimism that filled
the air had reached Andrew Malden, and he sat by the fire all winter
nursing it. If he could sell the Cove Mine--but what was there to
sell? And he gave it up as a futile project. Then there came news of a
rich strike of gold in Shasta county, and a little later in the far
south the deserts of the Mojave were found to glitter. A perfect
epidemic of mining excitement followed. The most unthought-of places,
the old deserted mines, were found to be bonanzas. Andy caught the
fever. He tramped all over the Pine Tree Ranch prospecting, but gave
up in despair. Then he thought once more of the Cove Mine. He made
many a secret trip there. Then he ordered a box of gold dust from the
Yellow Jacket and stole down to the Cove again and again, till
discovered by Job.

In all those years of living for himself and to himself, Andrew Malden
had tried to be square with the world. Business was business with him.
He made no concessions to any man; pity and altruism were not in his
vocabulary. Unconsciously to himself, he had grown to be a very hard
man, and the heart within him found it difficult to make itself felt
through the calloused surface of his life. But with it all Andrew
Malden had been honest. His word was as good as his bond in all
Grizzly county. No man questioned his statements. Everyone got a
hundred cents on the dollar when Andrew Malden paid his debts.

But no man knew that in those days of the hard spring the gray-haired
pioneer was passing through one of the greatest temptations of his
life. Men were buying up mines all about him, just at a glance; mines
fully as worthless as the Cove Mine. Anyhow, who knew the Cove Mine
was worthless? It had had a marvelous record in early days. A little
capital spent might bring immense reward. The old man sat, again and
again, alone on the front porch and turned it over in his mind. Then
he would creep off down to the mine, and feel his way in the dark
tunnel, looking for a new lead. He looked at the places he had salted,
until he almost brought himself to believe them genuine. Nobody would
know the difference, he argued. Job did not know what he was doing
when he found him. He would take the risk; he might lose the ranch
itself if he did not. And, coming home with the first stain of
dishonesty on his soul, Andrew Malden astonished Job by ordering him
to have Jack and Dave hitched up at three in the morning; he was going
to drive to the plains and the railroad station, then take a train to
the city, and would be back in a few days.

Ten days later, Jack and Dave and the carriage, all coated with slush
and mud, drove up to the door, and Andrew Malden, with a strangely
affable smile on his face, clambered stiffly out and introduced Job to
Mr. Henry Devonshire, an Englishman traveling for his health and
profit. With a gruff greeting the stranger said:

"We 'ad a dirty trip hup. The mud's no respecter h'of an H'english
gentleman nor h'an American millionaire, don'cher know?" and the
pompous Mr. Devonshire handed his hand-grip to Job, while he poked out
his shoes for the gray-haired lackey to wipe, with an--

"'Ere, you, clean these feet, bloomin' quick!"

Job and Tony obeyed, but a significant look passed between them.

The next few days things went lively at the Pine Tree Ranch. Some of
the mill men were ordered off to scour the mountains for deer, a new
Chinese cook came up from Gold City, and the old man and the
"H'english gentleman," as Tony called him with a contemptuous chuckle,
mounted horses and went riding over the ranch and down to the mine. It
took all the grace Job had to see the arrogant boor, with his two
hundred and fifty avoirdupois, get Tony to help him mount Bess, and,
poking her in the ribs, call out, "What a bloomin' 'orse! Cawn't h'it
go!" and ride off toward Lookout Point.

It was astonishing, the politeness Andrew Malden assumed; how he
overlooked all the gruffness of his guest and treated him like a
prince. Job fairly stared in wonder. It capped the climax when one
night--just as, tucked up snug in his bed, Job was dreaming of his
last walk home from school with Jane--to feel a rude shake and to see
Andrew Malden with excited face standing over him, saying:

"Jump, boy! Dress quick and saddle Bess and ride with all your might
to Gold City and catch Joe before the stage leaves. Take this
telegram, and tell him to send it as soon as he gets to the plains and
Wheatland Depot! Here, up with you!"

It was not over fifteen minutes after that Job was galloping away on
Bess' back in the cold, night air, over the muddy roads, stiffened
somewhat in the frosty spring night, and lit only by the dim
starlight. It was a wild ride, a ride that sent a chill to his very
marrow; and if it had not been for his ever-present trust in God, it
would have struck terror to his heart. It seemed as if it grew darker
and darker. The clouds were creeping across the stars, the great trees
hung like a drapery of gloom over the roadway. Faster and faster he
rode. Now he soothed Bess as she shied at some suspicious rock that
glistened with unmelted snow, or some crackle in the bushes that broke
the stillness of the night air; then he urged her on till down the
steep Frost Creek road she fairly flew.

It was at the dim hour of dawn, and out of the gloom the world was
creeping into view, when Job, with the white foam on Bess, and both
heated and freezing himself, rode up to the door of the old brick
Palace Hotel, where Joe, just mounting the box of the familiar ancient
coach in which Job had once years ago traveled as a passenger, was
about to snap his whip over the backs of four doubtful-looking horses
which stood pawing the ground as if anxious to be stirring in such
frosty air.

A hurried conversation, a white paper passed into Joe's hands, and the
long whip snapped, four steeds made a desperate charge forward, an old
woman in the coach, wrapped in three big shawls, bounded into air, and
Job saw the stage vanish up the hill, with the horses settling down to
the conventional snail's pace they had maintained these long years.




CHAPTER XI.

BATTLES WITH CONSCIENCE.


Joe evidently sent the telegram, for his stage next day brought up the
long-looked-for load of "bigbugs" that set the whole town of Gold City
wild to know why they were there. A perfect mob of street urchins,
loafers, shop-men and bar-keepers who could spare a bit of time, lined
up in front of the Palace Hotel and watched the plaid-coated,
gray-capped visitors in short knickerbockers and golf stockings puff
their pipes around the bar and call for "Porter and h'ale, 'alf and
'alf."

Interest reached its climax when, after supper, three buckboards,
loaded with the guests heavy in more ways than one, started down
toward Mormon Bar and the Pine Mountain road.

It was quite late when the loud barking of dogs announced their
arrival at Pine Tree Ranch, and it was still later when Job crept up
to the hay-loft over the stable to find a substitute for his cosy bed,
which he had surrendered to another "H'english gentleman," with an
emphasis on the last word. The boy was in a quandary to know what it
all meant. He felt an inward sense of disgust. He disliked such people
as these new friends of the old man's. Then he remembered that the
good Book says, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and he was
painfully conscious that they were close neighbors now; so he breathed
a silent prayer that the Lord would make him love the unlovable, and
after a time fell asleep.

It was the second day of the feast. Venison and quail, if not milk and
honey, had made the table groan in the big center room, now changed
into a dining-room. The parlor had been turned into a smoking-room,
and Job had seen, with indignation that stirred his deepest soul,
empty beer bottles on his bedroom floor. A whole cavalcade of horsemen
had gone down in the morning to the Cove and come galloping back at
night. Job had been to the milk-house and was coming back past the
side door in the dusk of the evening; it was ajar and the fumes of
tobacco smoke rolled out. He was tempted to peer in. Around the
cleared dining-table the crowd of red-faced guests were seated, with
Andy at the head playing the host in an awkward sort of way. On the
table were spread a big map and paper and ink.

"Well, Mr. Malden, this 'ere nugget came from the mine, you say.
Bloomin' purty, hain't h'it, fellows?" said a voice.

"Yes, gentlemen, I found that myself. My son Job and I were
prospecting, and we discovered it--the richest nugget ever found in
Grizzly county. Of course we kept it a secret; didn't want a rush up
here," replied Malden.

"What a lie!" said Job to himself. "That's the very nugget Mike
Hannerry found at the Yellow Jacket! Where on earth did uncle get it?"

"Come, Devonshire, let's buy 'er h'up and get h'out of this bloomin'
country. I want to get back to the club. The boat for Australia sails
Saturday," spoke up another voice.

"But now I want to ask the mon a thing," said a little shrewd-faced
Scotchman. "Is he sure the thing down the hollow isn't salted? I got
one salted mine in the colonies, and--"

"Salted!" said Andy, with an unnoticed flush on his face. "Salted! Do
you suppose, gentlemen, I would bring you here to sell you a salted
mine? You can ask anybody back in the city if my credit isn't
first-class."

"Oh, mon," said a tall Highlander, "oh, mon, the feller's crazy.
Salted--humph! We saw the gold with our own eyes. I say take the mine.
I'll take a thousand shares at a pound. How much is the deal, did the
mon say?"

"H'an 'undred thousand pounds. Cheap, I think," answered Devonshire.

"H'it's a go. We'll 'ave the stuff h'at the h'inn down h'in--what's
the name of that town?" said the tall one.

"Gold City, sir, Gold City!" spoke up the excited host.

"Well, Gold City--that's the spot. We'll pay the cash there. My
banker'll come h'in there to-night h'in the stage."

And as Job crept away, he heard them planning, between drinks, the
future of the "Anglo-American Gold Mining Syndicate," with main office
in London and place of operation in Grizzly county, State of
California, the United States of America.

Job did not sleep that night. All through the dark hours he tossed on
his straw bed over the stable. Andrew Malden was going to sell the
Cove Mine for five hundred thousand dollars--and it was not worth one
cent! It was an outrageous fraud. The boy felt like going and telling
those capitalists. He felt a sense of personal guilt. Yet he almost
hated those men. What difference if they were cheated?--they would
never miss it; they deserved it. How much Uncle Andy needed the money!
And it would be his own some day.

That thought touched Job's conscience to the center. He was a partner
in the crime! He half rose in bed, resolving that he would face the
crowd and tell all--how he had stood by and seen the old man salt the
mine. Then he hesitated. What was it to him? If he told, it would ruin
Andy. What business had he with it, anyhow? But all night long the
wind whistled in through the cracks, "Thou shalt not steal," and Job
tossed in agony of soul, wishing he had never climbed down the Pine
Mountain trail to the Cove on that spring day when Andrew Malden
salted the mine.

The sun was well up the next morning when the procession of buckboards
was ready to start for Gold City. Andrew Malden and the shrewd fellow
had gone an hour before, the rest were off, and only the boorish
Devonshire was left to ride down with Tony. Job stood, with heart
palpitating and conscience goading him, down by the big pasture gate
to let them through. All his peace of mind was gone. A few moments and
the crime would be carried out to its end, and he would be equally
guilty with the avaricious old man who was the nearest one he had in
all the world.

Tony and the last man, the obnoxious Devonshire, were coming. How Job
hated to tell him, of all men! The hot flashes came and went on his
cheek; he turned away; he bit his lip; he would let it go--lose his
religion and go to the bad with Andy Malden. Then the old camp-meeting
days came back to him. He heard again Slim Jim's words in the dark
behind the church that Christmas night; he remembered his vows to God
and the church.

The horse and the buckboard had passed through the gate; the
Englishman had thrown him a dollar; he was trembling from head to
foot. He offered a quick prayer, then hurried after them, halted Tony,
and, looking up into the red face of his companion, said:

"Sir, the mine is salted; I saw the old man do it--it's salted sure!"

The load was gone, the consciousness of truthfulness filled his soul.
That day he played with Shot and sang about his work.

       *       *       *       *       *

The dusky twilight had come, when Job heard the stern voice of Andrew
Malden outside, as, with an oath, he threw the reins to Hans. The boy
rose to meet him as he heard his step on the porch. The door opened,
and Job saw a white face and flashing eyes, the very incarnation of
wrath.

"You pious fraud! What made you tell those men the mine was salted!"
hissed the old man.

"Uncle, I am sorry, but I couldn't help it. I knew it--I had to tell
the truth," stammered Job.

"Couldn't help it, you sneak! You owe all you are to me. I guess I am
more to you than all your religion!"

"Uncle, I am sorry to hurt you, but I could do no less and please God.
And God is first in my life."

"First, is he? Then go to him, and let him feed you and clothe you,
you ungrateful wretch!" And with the words the angry man struck Job
such a blow that he went reeling over, a dead-weight, on the floor.

It was midnight when Tony, passing the door, heard the old man moan.
Peering in at the window, he saw him on his knees beside Job, who,
with white face and closed eyes, lay on a lounge near the door. Tony
stole away to whisper to Hans:

"Guess the old man's made way with the kid! Let's lay low!"

What a night that was for Andrew Malden! Two minutes after he had
struck the blow, all the wrath which had gathered strength on that
long mountain ride was gone. The blow struck open the door of his
heart; he saw that the boy was right and he was wrong. That blanched
face, those closed eyes--how they pierced him through and through! He
loved that boy more than all the mines and gold and ranches in the
world. The depth of his iniquity came over him. He hated himself, he
hated the Cove Mine; but that stalwart lad lying there--how he loved
him! All the hidden love of thirty years went out to him. "Job! Job!"
he cried. "Look at me! Tell me you forgive me!"

He dashed water in the boy's face. He felt of his heart--he could
hardly feel it beat. Was he dead? Dead!--the only one he cared for?
Dead!--the poor motherless boy he had brought home one moonlight night
long ago, and promised that he would be both father and mother to him?
Dead!--aye, dead by his hand! And for what? For telling the truth; for
being honest and manly; for saving him from holding in his grasp the
ill-gotten gain that always curses a man.

The hot tears came, the first in years. Andrew Malden knelt by the
bedside and groaned. And then he thought of Job's God and of the
Christ he talked about: thought of the little Testament he cherished.
He would call on Him, he would beg Him to spare Job. He knelt near the
lad; he started to say, "Oh, God, spare my boy! spare my boy!" when a
sense of his wickedness, his hard heart, his selfish life, his sin,
came over him; and instead he cried from the depths of his soul, "God
have mercy on me a sinner!"

The daylight was struggling through the shutters when Job turned and
opened his eyes, to see an anxious face look into his own and to hear
a familiar voice out of which had gone all anger, say:

"Oh, Job, my boy, I knew He'd hear me, I prayed so long! Job, God has
forgiven me! Won't you? Oh, tell me you will! I am a different man! I
read it in the Book while you lay here so still: 'Though your sins be
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' And Job, it's true!"

The fever stayed with Job many a day after that, and it was June
before the natural color came back into his white cheeks. But the old
ranch seemed like a new place to him; and when one morning Mr. Malden
read at family devotions, "All things work together for good to them
that love God," he broke down in the prayer he tried to make, and
rushed out of doors to hide the tears of joy that choked him, while he
heard Tony singing as he went about his toil:

    "Oh, dar's glory, yes, dar is glory,
      Oh, dar is glory in my soul!
    Since I touched de hem of His garment,
      Oh, dar is glory in my soul."




CHAPTER XII.

SQUIRE PERKINS.


Of all the queer families in the mountains, not one, surely, equalled
that of Squire Perkins, a real down-east Yankee, whose house was not
more than a mile west of Malden's Mill, on the Frost Creek road. A
little weazened old man, who, while he had always been staunch to his
political creed, and had been Republican supervisor of the town ever
since people could remember, yet had drifted religiously till he was
now a typical Spiritualist. The neighbor boys who used to go past his
house evenings and see him with the "Truth Seeker" in his hands,
wandering among the trees and gazing blankly into space, often took
him for a genuine ghost.

His wife was quite unlike him. She was born in a house-boat on the
Pearl River near Canton, and, with hair plaited down her forehead and
cheeks, slanting eyes and wooden shoes and a silk robe, had landed at
San Francisco when it was still a heterogeneous trading-post, and had
come up with the miners to prattle "pigeon English," and cook, as it
turned out, for Squire Perkins. When other women came--Americans from
the States--the old man married her. Long since she had adopted
American ways and had joined the Methodist church, and not one of the
neighbors, who always sent for Squire Perkins' wife in time of
trouble, thought less of her because she was a Chinese woman.

The long, white cottage, with its vine-covered walls, its
"hen-and-chicken" bordered walks, and its old gnarled apple tree
hugging the left side next to the stone chimney, became a still
queerer place when Widow Smith, a tall, straight, firm, black-eyed,
dark-skinned Indian woman, the descendant of a long line of natives of
these hills, but withal a refined, womanly old lady, came to board
with Squire Perkins and his wife. Widow Smith was a Presbyterian of
the straitest sort. The Squire's was surely a home of many races and
many creeds.

It was at this house that one Tuesday evening the Methodist class met,
and Andy Malden came and confessed Christ, and all Grizzly county was
startled thereby. It was here that Job often rode up on Bess beside
the kitchen window where Aunty Perkins was making rice cakes, and
heard her say: "Job, heap good, allee samee angel cake. Have some.
Melican boy have no mother. Old Chinawoman, she take care of him."

And she kept her word. She won the boy's heart, till he found himself
more than once going with his troubles down to Aunty Perkins', who
always ended her motherly advice with, "Be heap good, Job, heap good.
The Lord lub the motherless boy. 'He will never fail nor forslake
thee.'"

It was here that Jane also stole with her heart burdens to the
strange, great-hearted woman who mothered the whole county. It was
here she was going one hot July afternoon, as, with blackberry pail on
her arm, she walked slowly down Sugar Pine Hill, thinking of the day
when she had first met Job on that very road. Her black hair was
smoothly braided down her back, she wore a light muslin dress tied
with a red sash, low shoes took the place of the tan and dust of other
days, a neat starched sun-bonnet enfolded her face now showing traces
of womanhood near at hand. As she turned the bend of the road, Job
stood there leaning on the fence with a far-away look. It was he who
was startled this time, as he dropped his elbows and hastened to lift
his faded sombrero. It was the most natural thing in the world for
him to walk slowly down the lane with her toward the Mill Road. The
July sun was hot, so they kept on the shady side of the way.

Job thought enough of the girl to make him reserved. He wanted to tell
her that she was first in all his prayers, and that up in his room he
had the plans drawn for a cabin over on the corner of the ranch where
she should stand in the doorway and look for his coming. Thrice he
started to open his heart, then he shrank back abashed; talked of the
cows and how the calves grew; told her Bess was lame--couldn't ride
her this week; said that was a pretty fine sermon the parson preached
last Sunday--and turned homeward; while Jane looked after him with
wondering eyes and felt a great ache in her heart as she thought:

"It's no use; he don't care for me!"

She had barely passed the mill and the whiz of its machinery lulled
into a murmur that mingled with the brook along the well-shaded road,
when she heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and, mounted on an old
white nag, Dan rode up to her side with:

"Hello, Jane! Get on and ride!"

Jane blushed. A year ago she would have done it; why not now, even if
she was big? No one would see her. Dan was awfully good to ask her;
Job wouldn't do it. So up she climbed on the saddle behind him, and
Dan walked the horse as they chatted away in the most easy fashion.

She was longing to talk of religion to Dan; she felt he needed it. But
one thing was sure--Dan was sober nowadays; he had actually improved.
He was trying now to talk of love; for he was really beginning to feel
that, not only because he had made a bet to do so and defeat Job, but
because he did care, he should some day claim Jane Reed as his own.
Neither succeeded in getting the conversation just where they wanted
it before Squire Perkins' apple orchard came into view, and Dan was
obliged to halt his old nag by the horse-block built out from the
white fence and assist Jane to alight.

She actually stood there till Aunty Perkins called: "Gal lost one
ting. Come lite in. All gone." At which Jane blushed and went in,
though all Mrs. Perkins' words could not drive out of her mind the Job
she loved and the Dan whom she wished she could love. How comely she
looked as she stood in the doorway at twilight! Any one might have
been proud of her.




CHAPTER XIII.

SCHOOL.


The next fall was Job's last term at school. He felt awkward and out
of place, for most of the boys of the country round left at sixteen,
just as they were tangled up in fractions and syntax. Now he was close
to the twenties, and the only big boy left in the Frost Creek school,
whose white walls peeped out through a grove of live-oaks where the
creek babbled merrily over the rocks.

Yet with a pluck that had always characterized him, Job stuck to his
books and sat among the crowd of little youngsters who automatically
recited the multiplication table when the teacher was looking, and
threw paper wads when she was not. Jane was there, copying minutely in
dress and manner after Miss Bright, the new teacher, whom she greatly
admired. Job found it very pleasant to still walk home with Jane and
talk of algebra, class meeting, and the trip they must soon take to
the Yosemite--subjects which were mutually interesting. Yet somehow
the wild, natural freedom of former days was missing. Both were
painfully conscious of their awkward age and the fact that they were
no longer children.

Charlie Lewis sat next to Job, a wee, frail little fellow, whose large
eyes looked up endlessly at his tall next neighbor, whom he secretly
worshiped, partly because Job shielded him from the rough bullies,
and partly because he had taken a fancy to the little lad and took him
along when he went up to the mountains or down to Perkins Hollow
swimming. A crowd of dark-eyed Mexicans and one small Chinese boy
filled the right corner, while over on the left were the Dixon
children and little Helen Day. Helen was a new arrival, a prim Miss of
six, who used to live on the plains, where her father was section-hand
on the railroad; which accounted, perhaps, for the fact that the time
when Father Lane, the old preacher from Merritt's Camp, called and
they sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and the teacher asked Helen
what ties were meant, she promptly answered, "Railroad ties, ma'am."

As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at
her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss
Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing
merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing
kindergartèn songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the
smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they
stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco,
lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of
philosophy--names which Job knew must mean something grand. He began
to wish that Jane looked like her and talked like her and had lived in
'Frisco. He began to wonder who it was that Miss Bright wrote letters
to every day, and who wrote those Dan Dean used to leave at the
school-house for her postmarked "New York." His fears were relieved,
though, when he heard her laugh merrily one day when inquisitive
Maggie Dean asked: "What man writes to you all the time, Miss Bright?"
and reply, "My brother, of course, Maggie. But little girls shouldn't
ask too many questions."

They used to have morning prayers when the other teacher was here, but
Miss Bright said that prayer was only the expression of our longings
and we did not need to pray aloud, and she thought God knew enough to
look after us without bothering him about it every day. Job was
shocked at first, then he thought perhaps Miss Bright was right, she
was so nice and knew so much. She boarded at Jeremiah Robinson's, who
lived on the Frost Creek road. More than once Job found himself going
there at her invitation, ostensibly to study Latin and literature,
which were not in the regular curriculum. He did not care much for the
studies--he found it hard to get far beyond "Amo, amas, amat," and as
for Chaucer and his glittering knights and fair ladies, he detested
them; but those moments after the lessons, when Miss Bright chattered
away about the beauties of evolution and the loveliness of protoplasm
and the immanence of Deity in all nature--Job fairly doted on them.

Sometimes she accepted his invitation for an evening ramble. He felt
proud to have people see him with her. He would have liked to ask her
to the class-meeting at Squire Perkins', but he was afraid to; she
would think it beneath her to go among those country folks. And then,
what would she think of Widow Green if she got one of her
crying-spells? or lame Tim, who was a little daft, but who loved to
come to class-meeting and said always, "Tim's no good; he ain't much;
but Jesus loves him. Sing, brethren, 'I am so glad that Jesus loves
me.'" So Job never invited her. In fact, he did not like to tell her
he went; and, for fear she would know it, he stayed away two weeks
when she asked him to walk with her those moonlight nights.

Miss Bright was so good, he thought; yet there was much he could not
understand. She never went to church. She said it was too far, and
besides she thought it more helpful to worship amid the grandeur of
nature, reading the lofty thoughts of the poets. And after that Job
thought the preacher at Gold City was a little old fogyish.

Dan Dean was not slow to observe the unconscious drifting of Job away
from the church and toward the schoolma'am. Jane did not notice it
till Dan hinted to her that the only reason Job had cared for the
church was because she went there, and now that Miss Bright had come
he had dropped her and the church both. Which was so near the truth
that Jane began to feel strange when Job was near, and to do what she
had never dreamed of doing before with a single human being--she began
to doubt the occasional kind words he now gave her, and all he had
ever uttered. With the impulse of a wounded heart, she turned to Dan.
Yet try the best she could, she could never feel the same toward him.
She pitied Dan; a philanthropic feeling animated her as she thought of
him. She would do anything to make a man of him--marry him, even, if
necessary; but to think of surrendering her life and very being to
him, following him down the tortuous path of life, "For better or for
worse, for richer or poorer," to have him as her ideal of
manhood--that thought repelled her. Often she found herself standing
behind a tree on the way home from school, waiting to catch one
glimpse of Job as he sauntered by with Miss Bright's cloak on his arm
and its owner chattering at his side. She was angry to think she did
it; she ran home by the short cut through the woods, slammed the cabin
door behind her, threw herself on the bed and had a good cry, arose
and wiped the tears away, and vowed she would marry Dan if he asked
her.

Job unconsciously walked into the meshes that fate seemed to have
thrown around him. More and more he transferred the admiration of his
heart to the stately, proud, talented girl of the world, who found him
a convenient escort and companion in the mountain country where
friends that suited her were scarce. Job was blind; he adored her.
Later and later, daily, was his return from school. The little
Testament grew dusty on the box-table in his bedroom, his morning
prayers sounded strangely alike, and even Andy Malden wondered at the
coldness of the lad's devotion at family worship. He went to church,
but seldom to class-meeting. He devoured a book Miss Bright had loaned
him, on "The World's Saviors--Buddha, Mohammed, Christ,"--in which he
found his Master placed on a level with other great souls. He asked
her the next day if she did not think Christ was divine, and marveled
at her learned reply that "All nature is divine. Matter and men are
but the manifestations of divinity, and the Galilean Teacher was
undoubtedly a wonderful character of his day."

One night, as he left her, she loaned him a French novel full of
skepticism and scorn of virtue and morality. He was tempted to throw
it in the fire, but it was hers. He read it and rather liked it. He
began to think he had been too narrow; he wished he could get out and
see the world, the great world of thinking people where Miss Bright
lived. The poison was in his soul. How commonplace the sermon sounded
the next Sunday on "I am determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and him crucified"! How narrow Paul must have been! It
was the Sunday night before Christmas. The fall term had ended, and
the schoolma'am was going home; no more school till spring. A year
before Job had stood in the great congregation and taken the solemn
vow to be loyal forever to Christ and his church; to-night the
Christmas service went on without him. Tony, who was there and who
half suspected something was wrong, yet did not like to have anyone
else think so, said to those who asked him:

"Yes, Marse Job's sick; dassen't come out."

But Job was not sick, as Tony thought. He was in the Robinson parlor,
sitting with Miss Bright before the flickering log fire, which dimly
lit the long, low room with its rag carpet and old-fashioned
furniture. They were talking over their friendship, and she was
flattering him upon his superiority to those country greenhorns who
lived up here; she always knew he had city blood in him. Job was
acting sillier than anybody would have dreamed Job Malden could act,
in his evident pride at her flattery and the strange feelings which
drew him to her. She laughed at his attempts to compliment her, and,
on his departure, followed him to the door and said how heart-broken
she was to leave the mountains and him.

Job went home in raptures, and lay awake all night planning how to get
away from the mountains and the rude people who lived there, and down
into the city somewhere--anywhere where Fanny Bright lived.

All that week he wandered about as if lost, cross and good for nothing
at work. His city idol had gone home.

It was two days after Christmas that Job tore the wrapper off a
'Frisco paper and sat down to read, when, glancing over the columns,
his eyes met the following:

     "Unity Church made a brilliant scene on Christmas night at the
     wedding of Miss Frances Evelyn Bright, a charming young society
     lady, to Walter Graham Davis, the well-known actor. Miss Bright
     had just returned from Grizzly county, where she has been for
     her health, so her friends made the reception that followed one
     in a double sense."

It was a haggard, red-eyed young fellow who crept down the stairs
after dusk, stole out to the stable, and saddled Bess. All night he
rode up and down the mountain roads. He hated the ground Miss Bright
had walked over, hated the house she had lived in, hated the school,
vowed he'd never enter it again, hated himself. She was gone, Jane was
gone--long since he had let Dan have her to himself--his church was
gone, all his peace of soul, all his religion, was gone. He would ride
up on Lookout Point and plunge over into the Gulch to death and
eternity, he and Bess together. Who cared? They were all alike--all
were heartless. Poor boy! he was learning a lesson that many a one has
learned--a bitter lesson--and all the forces of evil seemed to fight
for his soul that dark night as he climbed Lookout Point on Bess.

He had reached the top when the moon came up over El Capitan and drove
away the gloom, lighting up the white-topped peaks and the dark, black
ravine. Somehow, he thought of his mother. There had been one good
woman in the world, after all. He hesitated, then turned slowly down
the hill and toward home.




CHAPTER XIV.

YANKEE SAM.


It was a wild March night when Job Malden found his way back to God.
No one could ever forget that night. The storm tore over the mountains
till the great forests fairly creaked and groaned beneath the mad
sweep of the wind.

At dusk that afternoon a rap startled Job as he sat by the fire
watching the logs crackle and thinking of by-gone days, while the rain
poured without. He opened the door, and saw Mike Hennessy, dripping
wet and with cap in hand.

"Shure, Mr. Job, the top of the evenin' to yez. But Mr. Schwarzwalder,
the hotel keeper at the town, wants ye, he says, to bring the Holy
Book;" at which Mike reverently crossed himself. "A man is dyin' and
wants yez;" and the good-natured Irishman was gone in an instant,
leaving Job in blank amazement.

Ride that awful night to Gold City--take the Bible--man dying. What
could it mean? But the lad's better nature conquered, and, the Bible
snug in his pocket, he and Bess were soon daring the storm, bound for
Gold City.

It was a wild night. Wet to the skin, Job rode up to the Palace Hotel,
late, very late, where he found a group of solemn-faced men waiting
for him.

"Change your clothes, Job," said the hotel-keeper; "here's a dry suit.
Hurry now! Yankee Sam is dying upstairs, and he won't have no one but
you; says you're his preacher, and he wants to hear you read out of
some book."

[Illustration: "Listen, Job; I want to tell you."]

Job grew white. Yankee Sam dying, and he to hear his last confession,
he the priest to shrive him, he the preacher to console him! The boy
lifted up his first true prayer for months, and followed the man
upstairs to a low garret room, where the door closed behind him and
left him alone with a weak old man lying on a low bed, his eyes
shining in the dim candle-light with an unnatural glare.

"Oh, Job, I'm mightly glad you've come to help an old man die! Yes, I
am dying, Job; the old man's near the end. I'll no more hang around
the Miners' Home and beg a drink from the stranger. Curse the rum,
Job! It's brought me here where you find me, a good-for-nothing, dying
without a friend in the world--yes, one friend, Job; you're my friend,
ain't you?"

Job, frightened and touched to the heart, nodded assent.

"I thought so, Job. I take stock in you. That night you came here, a
blue-eyed, lonely boy, I took you into my heart--for Yankee Sam's got
a heart; and I felt so proud of you that night when you said, 'I
renounce the devil and all his works,' and I wished I could have stood
by you and said it, too. But Job, my boy, the devil has a big mortgage
on Yankee Sam, and he's foreclosing it to-night, and--"

The tempest shook the building, and Job lost the next words as the old
man rose on his elbow, then sank back exhausted. The wind died down,
and Job tried to comfort him with some words that sounded weak and
hollow to himself. But the dying man roused again, and, raising his
trembling hand, said:

"Wait, Job. Get the Book. See if it has anything in it for me."

Job opened to those beautiful words in Isaiah: "Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like
crimson, they shall be as wool."

The old man bent his ear to listen. "Job, let's see it. Is it in
there--'red like crimson, white as wool'? Oh, no, my sins are too red
for that! Listen, Job, I want to tell you. I am dying a poor lost
sinner, but I was not always a street loafer, kicked and cuffed by the
world. Hear me, my boy! Would you believe that I was once a mother's
blue-eyed boy in old New Hampshire? Oh, such a mother! She's up where
the angels are now. I can feel the soft touch of her hands that
smoothed my head when I was a boy. Oh, I wish she was here to-night!
But--Job, Job, I killed her!--I did! I came home with the liquor in me
and she fell in a faint, and they said afterward that she never came
to. Oh, Job, I killed her, and I didn't care! I went to the city. I
found a wife, a sweet-faced little woman; she married me for better or
for worse; and Job, it was worse--God have mercy on me!"

The old man gasped and then went on. "The babies came, and I was so
proud of them! Then the fever broke out. I went to get medicine when
she and the little ones were so sick, and I got on a spree--I don't
remember--but when I came to, they showed me their graves in the
potter's field; they said the medicine might have saved them. Oh, Job,
I can't think! It makes me wild to think!"

The storm burst again in its fury, and the old man's voice was
silenced. Then came a lull, and he went on, "Job, 'sins as
scarlet,'--ain't they scarlet? Well, I came West, got in the mines,
went from bad to worse and now, Job, I'm dying! And who cares?"

"God cares," said Job. "Listen: 'For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.'"

"Oh, Job, does that mean me?--poor old Yankee Sam!" said the dying
man.

Again Job read the words, and once again told as best he could the
story of the Father's love and of Jesus, who came to save from sin;
came to save poor lost sinners.

The old man hung on every word. "Say it again, Job, say it again! God
loves poor Yankee Sam! Say it again!"

Over and over Job said the words, then he sang soft and low:

    "Jesus, lover of my soul,
      Let me to thy bosom fly,"

while the tempest raged without.

    "Other refuge have I none,
      Hangs my helpless soul on thee."

Just then Yankee Sam stopped him.

"Job, that's me, that's me! Pray, Job! I am going fast!"

Oh, how Job prayed! Prayed till he felt God close by that dying bed.

"'As scarlet'--yet--'white--as snow.' Is that it, Job?" whispered Sam.
"Oh, yes, that's it! They're gone. Job--the devil's lost his mortgage.
Let me pray, Job. It's the prayer mother said for me when I was a
little boy; it's the prayer Andy Malden said at his lad's grave; it's
my prayer now:

    Now I lay me down to sleep,
    I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
    And if--if--"

The low, quavering voice ceased, a smile came over the white face, the
wind was hushed without, the stars struggled through the clouds.
Yankee Sam was dead, and peace had come back into Job Malden's soul.




CHAPTER XV.

THE YELLOW JACKET MINE.


The next fall Mr. Malden got Job the place of assistant cashier at the
Yellow Jacket Mine. His staunch character, his local fame as a student
at the Frost Creek school, and his general manly bearing, added to Mr.
Malden's influence in the county, won him the place when the former
assistant left for the East. Andrew Malden thought it would be a good
experience for a young man like Job, and perhaps would open the way to
something better than a lumber mill and a timber and stock ranch.

The Yellow Jacket Mine was one of the oldest and most famous in the
whole country. It was the very day they sighted the ship off Telegraph
Hill that brought the news into 'Frisco Bay that California was
admitted as a State, that gold was discovered in Yellow Jacket Creek,
where, when the rush came some days later, the men said they didn't
know which was most plenty--yellow jackets in the air, or yellow
jackets in the gravel bed of the creek as it lay dry and bare in the
summer sun.

At last the creek bed had been washed over and over till the
red-shirted miners could find not one nugget more, and the Yellow
Jacket was deserted. Then one day a poor stranded fellow, who came in
too late to make enough to get out, was digging a well, and found
quartz down deep and a streak of gold in it. That was the beginning of
the real fame of the Yellow Jacket. A company bought it up, machinery
was put in, and now, in Job Malden's day, the stamp mills and deep
tunnels of the mine kept five hundred men busy in shifts that never
ceased night or day.

Job never forgot the first day he went there as assistant cashier. He
had seen it all before, but when one is a sort of "partner" in a firm,
it looks different to one. And so it did to Job, as, after a long ride
with Tony in the buckboard down the Frost Creek road, up past Mike
Hennessy's, down and up and across Rattlesnake Gulch, and over the
heavily timbered mountain, a bend in the road brought him in full view
of the Yellow Jacket on the bare hillside opposite. The tall
smoke-stacks belching forth their black clouds; the big buildings
about them; the great heap of waste stuff at the right; the dump-cars
running out and back; the miners' shanties bare and brown on the left,
running up the hillside, hugging the break-neck steeps; the handsome
house on the south which he knew must be the superintendent's home;
the tall, ungainly brick structure of the company's store in the heart
of things; the far-off thump, thump, and the ceaseless roar of the
machinery--all this made a deep impression on Job.

For a year, at least, he was to live amid this scene. What a strange
life it was for Job there at the Yellow Jacket! There, in sight of the
eternal hills; there, only five miles, in an air-line, from the quiet
ranch, from Bess, the great barns, the world of nature, and home--and
yet it seemed five thousand miles away to him. Shut in that little
office behind the iron bars, bending over the great books sometimes
far into the night, looking out each pay-day through a little arched
window on grimy faces and rough-bearded men who held out toil-worn
hands to receive the week's earnings which long before another week
would find their way into some saloon-keeper's till or gambler's
pocket.

The only out-door world he saw was between the rear door of the office
and the long, low boarding-house where the foremen and clerks lived.
One corner of the great room upstairs, where a hard bed ran up against
the roof, and one place at the long, oilcloth-covered table, he had
the privilege to call his own for the modest sum of a gold piece a
week. He had every other Sunday to himself by the extreme favor of the
"boss," on whose own calendar Sunday never came, and who could not see
why it should on any one's else.

At first, Job left the narrow, well-worn streets, always, it seemed to
him, crowded with an endless procession of dirty, pale-faced,
muscular, rough men going to and from shifts; left them far behind and
tramped over to the Frost Creek school, redolent with peculiar
memories, to the afternoon service. But when the snows came and winter
set in, he dared not take the long tramps, but hugged the fire at his
boarding-house, read his little Testament, and tried in vain to find
one spot out of hearing of the noise of tramping feet, the roar of the
stamp-mill, and the hoarse laughter and rude stories and language of
the men ever coming and going.

He could never get away from the sound, and only in an old, abandoned
shaft back of the office could he crawl down out of sight to pray. But
Job never forgot to pray in those days. He was learning, as never
before, what it is to be in the world and yet not of it; in its
turmoil and din, sharing its work, mingling with its strange
humanity, and yet living in the atmosphere of prayer and high
thinking; in a world of impurity, yet living a pure life; a world of
evil words, and yet never even thinking them; in the world, and yet
not of it.

Job Malden was fast growing into manhood. It was in those long winter
days at the Yellow Jacket that the heart came back to him and somehow
he found himself thinking of Jane Reed. The bitter memory of the folly
of those days last winter at the Frost Creek school still haunted him,
and yet the hardness had gone out of his soul. He had no right to
think of Jane, he felt; he had forfeited all claim to her affection.
But somehow the old love came back, and he longed to go to her and be
forgiven. What a true girl she was!--a child of the mountains. Little
she knew of the city and its guile, of society and its masks. How
could he ever have thought her common or beneath him! She towered up
in his thought like the pines of her native mountains, as fresh and
natural and wild as they. He would not have her different. She was far
above him. Faith, and church, and simple homely virtues, and all that
is holy, were linked in Job's mind with the memory of artless, honest,
great-hearted Jane that came back to him in the lonely hours at the
mine.

One day he started back at seeing a strangely familiar face present
itself at the pay window.

"Oh, yer needn't be scart,' Job, because yer old pard's got a job in
the Yellow Jacket as well as yer." It was Dan's voice. "Must be mighty
nice in there handin' out the boodle to us poor, hard-worked laborers;
mighty easy to tuck a little of it in yer pocket now and then."

Job colored, and replied that it was not his money, and he only took
his pay like the men.

"Mighty good yet, ain't yer, Job; playin' the pious dodge still.
Thought perhaps the way that schoolma'am jilted yer would take the
big-head out of yer. Well, I don't make any pretense of bein' pious;
don't need to, as I can see--get all I want without it. Every gal in
town wants me, and a fine one that came near gettin' fooled on yer
likes me purty well. In fact, that's what's brought me over to the
mine--got to get a little stuff to fix up the house for her. When a
fellow brings a wife home, he wants the old place lookin' slick.
Good-day, Job. See yer again."

Job made no reply, but a lump came into his throat. He stood and
stared, and then turned in an absent-minded way and bent his head over
the great ledger, though he seemed not to care which page opened. Jane
to marry Dan! Was that what he had meant? Had it come to that? Once
Job had not cared, but now the thought made him wild. Could it be
true? Jane to marry Dan Dean! Better she were dead. Job felt he could
see her carried to the grave with less sorrow than to see her Dan's
wife.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was very strange how Job came to be the preacher at the Yellow
Jacket mine. Not that he ever put on clerical garb or deserted the
office or was anything more than a plain, every-day Christian. Yet
there came a time when in the eyes of those rough miners, with hearts
far more tender than one would think from their exterior--and not only
in their eyes, but in those of the few wives and the half-clad
children who played on the waste heap--Job came to be called "The
Reverend," and looked up to as a spiritual leader.

It was the day that he went down to the eight-hundred-foot level that
it began. He well remembered it. Up to the left of the stamp-mill, not
far from the main office, was a square, red-painted building, up whose
steps, just as the bell in the brick store's tower struck the set
time, a procession of clean-faced miners went in and a procession of
grimy ones came out. It was at the one o'clock shift that Job went in
that day, watched the men hang their coats on what seemed to him an
endless line of pegs, take their stand one by one on the little
platform which stood in the center of the floor like a trap-door,
grasp the iron-bar above them, and at the tinkling of a bell vanish
suddenly down into darkness out of sight.

It was the first time Job had been down the mine. The sight of the
constantly-disappearing figures on the cage that came and went did not
encourage him to go, but soon it was his turn. One of the men he knew
grasped one side of the bar of the trapeze over him, one the other,
the bell tinkled, and down he dropped with a jump that almost took his
breath; down past long, subterranean tunnels of arched rock, which,
from the heat he felt from them, and the blinding glare of the lights,
seemed to him like the furnaces of Vulcan. Further still he dropped to
the eight-hundred-foot level, where he stepped off in a narrow cavern
dimly lighted and stretching away into the distant darkness. Oh, how
hot it was! The brawny, white-chested miners had thrown off all
clothing but their trousers, and were dividing their time between
mighty blows on the great solid rocks, and the air-shaft and tub of
water, where every few minutes they had to go and bathe lungs and
face. The sound of the picks, the rattle of the ore cars bringing the
stuff to be hauled up the shaft, the steady thump, thump, of the pumps
removing the water from the lower levels, the intermittent drop and
rise of the cage, filled the weird place with strange sounds.

Job had delivered his message to the "boss" of the tunnel and was
hurrying back to the cage, when a half-naked miner, all stained with
the ever-dripping ooze from above, stopped him and said:

"Be ye the faither that prayed Yankee Sam t'rough?"

"Why--yes, and no," answered Job. "I was with Yankee Sam when he died,
but I'm no priest or parson."

"Aye, I said to Pat it was ye as ye went down, priest or not. I've
heard of ye, and the mon that could shrive Yankee Sam is a good enough
priest for any mon. Now, me boy Tim is dying, the only son of his
mother, and she in her grave. And Tim and me, we live alone in the hut
back of Finnigan's saloon. Tim's a frail lad. He would work in the
mines, and the hot air in this place and the cold air whin he wint up
gave him the lung faver, and the doctor says he's got to go. The next
shift I'm going up to him. Meet me at the pump-house. Don't tell him
yez is not a priest; it's all the same to him, and he'll die aisier if
he thinks the faither's come. Poor Tim, me only boy!"

What could Job do but consent? What could he do late that afternoon
but meet the broken-hearted Irish father at the pump-house and climb
the steep street to Finnigan's, and go in back to the poor hut that
the miner called home?

On a low, matted bed of straw and a torn blanket or two, in a corner
of the dismal shanty, through which the cold winds swept, lay Tim,
dying. The hectic flush was on his thin cheek, the glaze of death
seemed in his eye. He reached his wan hand to Job. A lad of sixteen he
was, but no more years of life were there for him.

"Tim, the faither's come. Tim, me boy, confess now and get ready for
hiven."

The boy glanced up. Perhaps Job did look like a priest, with his
smooth face and manly countenance. He hardly knew what to say or do
except to take that weak hand in his and press it with a brother's
warm clasp of sympathy. The dying boy touched his inmost heart.

"Faither," the boy faltered, "I am so sick! I have been a bad boy
sometimes. I--I--" Then he stopped to cough, and continued, "I haven't
been to mass in a year--no chance here, faither--and I got drunk last
Fourth--may the Holy Mother forgive me!--and I have been so bad
sometimes. But--" and he faltered, "I had a good mother, and she had
me christened right early."

"Aye, she was!" sobbed Tim's father.

"And," Tim went on, "and I'm so sorry for the bad! When you say the
prayers, tell her I'm sorry; for, somehow I think the blessed
Jesus"--and here the boy crossed himself--"the blessed Jesus will hear
my mother's prayer for Tim as soon as he'd hear his own. Faither, is
it wrong to think so?"

And Job, thinking of his own mother, with tears in his eyes could only
say, "No, Tim, no."

The lad grew still; and kneeling, Job talked low of God's great love,
as he had talked to Yankee Sam, prayed as best he could, and felt as
if he had indeed committed this mother's boy into the keeping of his
God, as Tim lay still and dead before him.




CHAPTER XVI.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.


The news of Job's visit to the dying boy soon spread through all the
miners' shanties, and soon more than one request came to him for
sympathy and help. Preacher or priest, or only humble Job Malden--it
mattered not what they thought of him. Job went on his errands of
mercy, till, unconsciously to himself, he had won his way into the
hearts of those rough, simple-hearted people, who lived more
underground than above, at the Yellow Jacket Mine. In fact, so
generally did he become known as "The Parson," that it was sometimes
uncomfortable, especially on the occasion when Lem Jones wanted to get
married. Oh, that was amusing!

It was in the spring. The new tri-weekly stage from Gold City was so
late that night that it was pitch dark before it drew up, with a
flourish, at the store. Job was busy at the books, and had not gone to
supper, when a man came peeping in at the window and shouted through
the glass:

"Job, you're wanted at Finnigan's Hotel!"

Donning his cap, and hurrying along the street and up the break-neck
stairs to Finnigan's, Job entered the room which served as parlor,
bar and office, and saw Lem Jones, one of the men at the hoisting
works, "dressed up" in a suit much too large for him, with high white
collar and red tie, while near by sat a tall, unnaturally rosy-cheeked
spinster dressed in a trailing white gown, with orange blossoms
covering a white veil hung over her hair, and an immense feather fan
in her white-gloved hand. Around the room, decorated with some
Christmas greens and lit by a red-hot stove, was gathered a group of
interested observers of all descriptions--some evidently invited
guests, some as evidently not.

"Mr. Parson, this 'ere's my gal, come from down East. We want to get
spliced, and," with a blush, "we're waitin' for ye to do it."

"Why, Lem, I can't!" stammered Job, quite abashed and taken aback at
the occurrence.

"Oh, yes," interrupted Lem, "I thought of that. Here's the paper--got
it myself of the clerk. Read it. See, here it is: 'Lemuel Jones, a
native of Maine and resident of the county of Grizzly, aged
thirty-seven, and Phebe Ann Standish, a native of Massachusetts,
resident of Boston, State of Massachusetts, aged thirty-one--'"

Quick as a flash, drowning Job's protest that he was not a preacher,
came a woman's shrill voice:

"Thirty-one! I'd like to know who said I was thirty-one! Lem Jones,
take your pen and ink, and correct that. Anybody would know I am only
twenty-one!"

A general laugh followed. Job finally found a chance to make the pair
understand that his performing the ceremony was out of the question,
as he had no legal authority--was not a minister.

The wedding party broke up in confusion. The cook was filled with
wrath at Job for spoiling the dinner; "the boys" insisted that he had
kept Jones from "settin' it up," and ought to do so himself; the bride
refused to be comforted and vowed she would go back to Boston.

It was less than a week after the wedding which did not come off, that
Job saw Dan at the pay-window beckoning to him. Going nearer, Dan
motioned him to lean over, drew him close, and whispered in his ear:

"I'm broke, Job, but got a fine chance to clear a slick hundred. Lend
me fifty till to-morrow."

"I can't do that, Dan," Job replied. "It's not mine, and I wouldn't
take a cent of the company's money for myself."

"Ye're a pretty parson!" hissed Dan, "sayin' prayers over dyin' folks,
and never helpin' yer own cousin out of a tight place!"

"But, Dan, I can't take the company's money. If I had fifty of my own
you should have it, though I suspect you want to gamble with it,"
replied Job.

"Yer won't give it to me?" said the other.

"No, I can't, Dan," Job answered in a firm voice.

"Yer hypocrite! Yer think yer got the cinch on me, don't yer, Job
Malden! 'It's a long lane that has no turn,' they say, and yer'll wish
some day yer'd treated Dan Dean square!" and he turned with a leer and
was gone.

More than once after that Job felt uneasy and wretched as he thought
of the possibility of Jane's linking her life with that of Daniel
Dean. Twice he tried to write her, but he blotted the paper in his
nervousness, and at last tore the letters up.

By a strange coincidence, it was the same week that Andrew Malden
struck a rich pocket of gold back of Lookout Point and secretly
carried it down to Gold City bank and paid off the mortgage on the
four hundred acres back of the mill, that Job Malden was held up.

This is how it happened: Just after hours one night the superintendent
called Job into his private office and said:

"Young man, how much will you sell yourself for?"

Decidedly startled, Job answered: "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean," said the portly, gray-haired man, with his set mouth and
black eyes, all business, "Can I trust you with a large sum of money?
or will the temptation to use it for yourself be too strong?"

"Sir," answered Job indignantly, "sir, I have no price! I want none
but honest money as mine."

"Well, all right, my boy; I guess I can trust you," said his employer.
"Now, I have some bullion to be taken down to the Wells-Fargo office
at Gold City, to go off on the morning stage. You will find Dick, my
horse, saddled at the stable. Eat some supper, mount Dick, come around
to the rear of my house, and the bag will be waiting. Take it down to
the Wells-Fargo office, where the man will be waiting to get it. I
have sent him word. Hurry now! And mind you don't lose any of it. Will
give you a week's extra pay if you get through all right."

With a "Thank you, sir; I'll do the best I can," Job hurried off on
his responsible errand.

It was a beautiful moonlight evening in June. Crossing the summit of
the mountain, the fresh breeze fanned his brow, heated with the warm
day's labor, and he walked Dick along, drinking in once more with
genuine joy the grandeur of the forests robed in silver light. Just
beyond Mike Hennessy's, as he turned into the main road, clouds
obscured the moon and a somber pall fell over the road. He felt to see
that his treasure was safe, and urged Dick into a canter.

He had not gone far when he thought he heard horse's hoofs behind him.
He stopped to listen, his heart beating a little more quickly, and
then hurried on. Again, more distinctly, he heard them coming down the
last hill. He put spurs to Dick as a strange fear came over him. Up
the hill before him he rode at a gallop, and on down the next. Faster
and louder in the dim darkness rang the hoofs of the horse behind him.
He was being pursued--there was no doubt of it now. If there had been,
the report of a pistol and the whiz of a bullet past his head would
have quickly dispelled it. Then began a wild chase. Up hill and down
hill, over rough creek-beds, down the Gold City road, they flew. How
Job wished for Bess! She could have outdistanced any horse, but Dick
was not her equal. The hoof-beats in the rear grew louder.

Job was just going over the hill to Mormon Bar, on that narrow place
where the bank pitches down to the creek two hundred feet, when he
heard a voice, emphasized by a ringing bullet, cry:

"Halt, you thief! I'm the sheriff of Grizzly county!"

Whether it was because Dick stumbled and almost fell, or because his
strength failed, or because of the bullet and the strange command, Job
halted, stunned, to look into the dark barrel of a pistol and to see
the white, masked face of a slim fellow in blue jean overalls and with
a red handkerchief about his throat.

"Hand over that boodle mighty quick! Thought I was a sheriff, did yer?
Ha! ha! None of your back talk! Give it here or swallow this!" poking
the pistol into Job's very mouth. The voice was familiar--more than
once Job had heard it.

He sprang from Dick to run as the other held his bridle, but heard the
whiz of a bullet past him and felt a stunning blow on his head. When
he came to, the treasure was gone and he could hear a horse's hoofs
pounding faintly In the distance. On his side, with the blood oozing
from his temples, Dick--poor Dick--lay dead!

It was a long walk back to the mine, and the first morning shift was
going to work when Job reached there. The superintendent heard his
tale, and without comment told him to get his breakfast and go to
work. Later he called Job in and asked some very strange questions.
Twice during the following day with aching head and troubled heart Job
tried to get another interview with the superintendent, but failed.

How it came about he never knew, but before the end of the week it was
common gossip around the mine that Job had made way with the
company's bullion to clear off the mortgage on Andrew Malden's place.
Job had never heard of the mortgage, and he tried to tell the
superintendent so; but he would not listen. All he did was to tell Job
on Saturday night that they did not know who took the money, but they
would need his services no longer.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was just as Andrew Malden was locking the doors for the night,
that--with a small bundle thrown over his shoulder, shamefaced,
discouraged, and so tired he could hardly walk another step--Job
pushed in and sat down in the old rocker. The older man was surprised
enough. What did it all mean? Job had soon told his story--the night
ride, the robbery, the long walk back to the mine, the strange
suspicion that had fallen on him, the refusal to believe his story,
the coldness of his employers, his dismissal, and the sad walk home.
He told it all through, then looking up into Andrew Malden's face,
said brokenly:

"God knows, uncle, it's true, every word!"

Andrew Malden never doubted the blue-eyed, homeless boy who had grown
to be the stalwart young man on whom he leaned more and more. It was a
great comfort to Job when the old man told him this, and declared he
would go over there in the morning and settle this matter; they would
believe Andrew Malden. Then he thought of the mortgage; he had paid
that, and no one knew where he got the money--and now perhaps they
would not believe him if he did tell them. Perhaps he had better not
go after all.

Late into the night the two talked it over, till they saw how dark
things really looked for them. Well enough they knew who was the
guilty person, but who could prove it? Finally Andrew Malden took down
the old family Bible and read: "What shall separate us from the love
of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" The reader laid stress on that
word "persecution." On he read: "I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus."

"Amen," said Job, as the old man laid down the book. "Yes, and it says
that 'all things work together for good to them that love God.'"

Together they knelt in prayer, and to Him who knows the secret
integrity of our hearts, as well as our secret sins, they committed
the burden that rested on their souls.

The next day was Sunday, a lovely June Sunday. The sunbeams were
playing across his face when Job awoke, and the fragrance of roses
filled the room as they looked in at the open window. How still and
beautiful was all the world! No thumping machinery, no jangling
voices, no grimy faces passing the window! Flowers and sunshine and
the songs of birds, and--home! Oh, how happy he felt!

He dropped on his knees the first thing, in a prayer that was almost a
psalm. He went downstairs in two jumps, and was out hugging Bess in no
time, telling her she was the best horse that ever lived. Then he went
racing Shot down to the milk-house, where he nearly upset Tony with a
pail of foaming milk. The big fellow stared and said:

"'Pears like you done gone clean crazy. Marse Job! Guess you think
you's a kid agin!"

When Job took the pail away from him and bore it safely in on his
head, Tony chuckled and said, "Bress de Lawd, Marse Job! You's mighty
good to me."

Job waited for no more of Tony's praises, but hurried off, with Shot
barking at his heels. Never had the old ranch looked more beautiful to
him--the house yard, the big barns, the giant pasture lot with the
clump of live-oaks next the yard, the forests on all four sides, the
wild-flowers covering the pasture with a variegated carpet, the garden
on the side hill. Job was a boy again, and he came in panting, to
nearly run over Sing, the new Chinese cook, who was not used to such
scenes at quiet Pine Tree Ranch.

Not long after breakfast they had prayers, at which Job insisted that
Tony and Hans and Sing should all be present. As he looked around at
the scene, the African and Mongolian sitting attentive while he read
the words, "They shall come from the east and the west, and sit down
in the kingdom of God," he thought the promise was kept that morning
at the ranch.

After devotions, Sing surprised them all by saying, "Me Clistian. Me
go to mission in Chinatown, San Flancisco. Me say idols no good. Me
play (pray) heap. Jeso he lub Sing. Me feel heap good."

They were overjoyed. Andy Malden shook hands heartily all around. Hans
said, "In Vaterland, Hans was sehr goot; pray for Hans, he goot here."

That was the great love-feast at Pine Tree Ranch, which Tony loved to
tell about as long as he lived.

The church was crowded that Sunday when Job and Andrew Malden drove up
behind the team of grays, with a lunch tucked under the seat, so they
could stay all day. It was Communion Sunday. The neat white cloth
which covered the table in front of the pulpit told the story as they
pushed their way in. The congregation was singing, "Safely through
another week, God has brought us on our way," and Job thought it was a
long, long week since he had sat in the old church and heard that
hymn. How natural it looked! The bare white walls, with here and there
a crack which had carved a not inartistic line up the sides. The stiff
wooden pulpit, almost hid to-day under the June roses. The same
preacher who had said that Christmas night, "Wilt thou be baptized in
this faith?" The little organ in the corner. The old familiar faces
looking up from the benches, and some new ones. There had been a
revival that winter in the church, and now Job could see its results.
The whole congregation was sprinkled with faces he used to see in the
saloons and on the streets, but had never hoped to see in church. Aye,
and there were some faces missing. Where was old Grandpa Reynolds, who
at that long-ago camp-meeting sang "Palms of victory, crowns of glory
I shall wear"? A strange feeling came over Job as he remembered that
he had gone Home to wear the crown of a sainted life.

    "Some of the host have crossed the flood,
    And some are crossing over."

The choir was singing the words. Job thought again of the aged saint.
He thought of Yankee Sam and that wild night when he died; of Tim,
poor Irish Tim; and then of that sweet face in the plain wooden casket
in the strange California city--his boyhood's idol--and the tears
started to his eyes.

"Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious." That was the text.
The preacher was beginning the sermon, and Job called back his
thoughts and leaned forward to listen.

"I think the tears were streaming down Peter's face when he uttered
these words. The memories of a lifetime crowded upon him. He was a
young man back by the Lake of Gennesaret, and looked up to see
Andrew's excited face and hear him say, 'Peter, brother, we have found
the great man; we have found the Messiah.' He was by those same waters
mending the nets, ready to push out for the day's toil, and lo! he
heard a voice--oh, how wonderful it was!--there was authority in it,
soul in it: 'Peter, come follow me,' and he dropped the nets, and went
out to life's sea to fish for men. Ah, yes, I think as Peter wrote
these words he remembered his solemn vows of loyalty, his ecstatic joy
on the Mount of Transfiguration, and then, alas! his awful sin when he
deserted Jesus in that dark terrible morning of the great trial. Oh,
those bitter hours! Peter could not forget them."

Job trembled; he knew what the preacher meant, he knew how Peter felt.

"But," continued the speaker, "how sweet there came back to him the
memory of another morning by the same Galilean waters, as he mused in
the twilight, and heard the Savior call, not in anger but in love,
'Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?' And back again, there where he
had first loved Him, Peter came to the old life of love and loyalty.
Memories of Pentecost, memories of life's trials and joys, ever
transformed by the spiritual presence of his Master, made Peter cry
from the depths of his soul, 'Unto you therefore which believe, he is
precious.'"

And Job in his heart said, "Amen."

Then the preacher went on, showing how that which endears anything in
this world to our hearts should make Jesus doubly precious. He talked
of money--of the treasure of the Sierras, and how much one thought it
would buy; but after all, how little of love and hope and faith it
could bring into a heart--those things which alone last as the years
go on.

It was a pathetic little story he told of a baby's funeral up in one
of the lonely, forsaken, sage-bush deserts, where, alone with the
broken-hearted father amid the bitter winds and snows of a bleak March
morning, he laid the only babe of a stricken home to rest in the
frozen earth, many miles from any human habitation; of how the father
leaned over and said, as the box vanished into the ground, "Sing 'God
be with you till we meet again,'" and how, as they sang it, out
against the winter storm the light of heaven came into that man's
face. "Tell me," the minister asked, as he leaned over the pulpit,
"how much gold could buy the comfort afforded by that hymn and that
hope?" And Job, thinking of the thousands he had handled at the Yellow
Jacket, felt that that hymn was worth it all.

Then the preacher talked of diamonds and of the preciousness of Jesus;
of the trinkets hid away in many an old trunk, precious because of
memories that clustered around them; and Job thought of his mother's
Testament. He said the life-memories that cluster around Jesus are
more precious than any other; and Job said "Amen" to that. At last he
talked of friends and how they are worth more than gold or diamonds or
relics of the past; and Job thought of Aunty Perkins--why, there she
was across the aisle, as intent as he; the sight of her face cheered
him. Then he thought of Jane--where was she? Job looked furtively
about, but could not see her. A little unrest filled his soul.

"No gold can buy so much pleasure for your poor heart, no diamond is
rarer, no relic brings back sweeter memories, no friend sticks closer,
than Jesus. The flood of time may sweep friends beyond your reach, the
mighty Sierras may crumble to dust, old earth may sink into space, and
you be alone with the stars and eternity, but it is written, 'I will
not leave thee nor forsake thee.' Jesus will be with you for time and
eternity. 'Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious.'"

Job heard Tony shout, "Hallelujah! Bress de Lawd!" and came very near
following his example.

    "He's the Lily of the valley,
      The Bright and Morning Star,"

rang out through the church, and voice after voice took it up:

    "In sorrow He's my comfort,
      In trouble He's my stay,"

and when it came to that place--he could not help it--Job did murmur
"Amen."

For a moment an overwhelming wave of emotion passed over his soul,
then he found the congregation rising, heard like a chant the words,
"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father," and the
Communion Service had begun.

Just then the sun came in through a broken shutter, lighting the
sacramental table with an almost supernatural glory, and Job felt a
mighty love for the Savior fill his heart and almost unconsciously
found himself singing with the congregation:

    "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,
    Heaven and earth are full of thy glory.
    Glory be to Thee, O Lord, most high! Amen."

When a little later he knelt at the altar with bowed head, as he heard
the minister's voice saying, "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
was given for thee," he resolved that from that hour, health, talent,
manhood, all he could be at his best, should be given to God and to
men.

At the close of the service Job saw Jane in the aisle before him, and
walked to the door with her, talking as in the old days. He longed to
say more, but did not. A thrill of happiness came into Jane's heart.
Perhaps he did care for her after all, she thought.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE STRIKE.


"Marse Job, dar's a gemman wid a mighty fine hoss wants to hab de
pleasure ob seeing de young marse," said Tony, poking his head inside
the door on the Friday afternoon after Job came home.

The young man grasped his cap and hurried to the gate, finding there,
to his surprise and consternation, the superintendent of the Yellow
Jacket Mine sitting in his buggy. At sight of Job, he sprang out,
extended his gloved hand to the lad, and proceeded to surprise him
still more by saying that he had come after him, as they wanted him
back; he felt sure he now knew who had taken the money, though he
could not arrest the person; he was very sorry he had so greatly
wronged Job; would raise his salary.

Job was greatly astonished. He expressed his thanks, but finally
managed to stammer out that he really had had all he cared for of
mining life, and did not want to leave the old ranch.

Then the man took his arm, and as they walked up and down together, he
told Job there was trouble brewing at the mine; the men were reading
all the news they could get about the great mining strike East, and a
whole crowd stood in front of the store each evening between shifts,
listening to agitators; the fellow Dean was talking strike on the sly
to all the men, and he was afraid that under the passing excitement
the best of the men would be duped by worthless leaders. So he wanted
Job back; Job knew the men, they liked him, they would hear him; the
company needed him, it must have him at any salary.

So Job went back to the Yellow Jacket with the memory of that
home-coming to cheer him in the dark times that were to follow. When
the next day the scowling men came one by one to the pay-window at the
office, muttering about starvation wages, they looked surprised to see
Job there. Some reached out their rough hands for a shake, and said,
"Shure and it does me eyes good to see you, lad;" others only scowled
the deeper; and one looked almost as if shot, forgot his pay, and
turned and walked away muttering, "Bother the saint! He's forever in
my way!"

It was just two weeks from that day that the storm broke at the Yellow
Jacket Mine. A deep undertone of discontent and rebellion had filled
the air during that time. Job had felt it more plainly than he had
heard it. The superintendent had kept a calm, firm face, though Job
knew he was anything but calm within.

It was just before Job had gotten ready on Saturday to shove up the
pay-window and begin his weekly task, that a group of burly men, with
O'Donnell, the boss of the eight-hundred-foot level, as spokesman,
came in and desired to see the superintendent. Calmly that gentleman
stepped up and wished to know what was wanted. Well, nothing in
particular, was the reply; only they had a paper they wished him to
sign. He took it and read it. It was a strange document, evidently
prepared by O'Donnell himself. It read as follows:

     "The Yellow Jacket Mining Company will Pay all men That work on
     the mine 20 pursent more To-day And all the time."

The superintendent folded up the paper, and, handing it back to the
men, turned and walked into the office without a word.

"Here, boss!" cried O'Donnell, "yez didn't plant yer name on the
paper! Ain't yez goin' to give the hands their dues?"

Then the superintendent turned and explained to the men that he could
not sign any such agreement; had no authority to; only the directors
in San Francisco and New York could authorize it; that the mine could
not afford it; that the men had no complaint--it was only false
sympathy with distant strikes which caused them to make this demand;
that he would not sign such a document if he could.

The men left in a rage. At the noon shift all the hands came up from
the mine; not one went down. The machinery stopped; not a wheel
turned, not even the pumps that were so necessary to keep the lower
levels from being flooded. At one o'clock the men began to come for
their pay, not one doing so in the morning. Each demanded a raise of
twenty per cent. on his wages, and, when this was refused by Job,
threw his money back on the shelf, and walked out without a word.

Hour after hour it went on--a constant procession of determined men
looking into Job's eyes, and each face growing harder, it seemed to
him, than the one before. Some did not dare look him in the eye, but
mumbled over the same well-learned speech which someone had taught
them, and went away. They were the ones Job had befriended in
distress.

Dan came in with head high in air, and talked as if he had never seen
Job; he demanded justice for such hard-worked fellows as himself and
his father, and gave a long harangue about the oppressed classes, till
the superintendent interposed and said:

"Mr. Dean, if you have any personal grievance, come to me
individually. Do not blockade that window; take your money and go."

And Dan went off in a white rage, leaving the money behind him.

At six o'clock Job put on his coat and cap, and followed the
superintendent and cashier to the door. There they found armed
sentinels pacing all about the stone office building, and O'Donnell
and his crowd waiting. They would be obliged, they were sorry to say,
to inform them that the men had decided the "boss and his crew" should
not go home till the "twenty per cent." was paid; that some food from
the men's boarding-house would be sent them, and they would have to
stay in the office till they came to terms.

There was no alternative. They were entrapped, and there was no
escape. Grim faces looked at them from all sides.

Back into the office they turned and locked the doors, to open them
only when a huge quantity of poor food that looked like the remains of
the miners' dinner was handed in. Again they swung the iron doors to,
barred them, and sat down for the night, with the unpleasant fact
staring them in the face that they were besieged and helpless.
Apparently they had not a friend in all the crowd that surged to and
fro in the narrow streets. There was no way of letting the outside
world know their plight.

What a night that was! At first the sound of excited voices and the
distant harangues of saloon-steps orators, then all quieted down;
there was not even the hum of the machinery--only the dull tramp of
the guards without, and the far-away call, "Twelve o'clock and all's
well," which told they had a picket line on the outer edge of the
town.

Job at last fell asleep in a heap on the floor, with other sleeping
forms about him. He dreamed of home and Jane, heard Tony shout "Bress
de Lawd!" and awoke to find himself aching in every bone from the hard
floor. The light had gone out. Outside all he could hear was tramp,
tramp, tramp. Then he heard voices. They came nearer. He crept to the
key-hole and listened.

"Let's burn the thing and kill 'em, and run the mine ourselves!" said
one voice.

"Yer blockhead, don't yer know it's stone?" drawled another. "No,
gentlemen, we'll fix 'em if they don't give us our dues to-morrow!
We'll starve 'em out, and yer bet they'll sign mighty quick! We don't
want their lives; we want justice, and--"

The voice died away in the distance. Job was sure it was Dan's.

Sunday came and went with no end of the siege. It was a long day in
the office. The superintendent pored over the books, and pretended to
forget he was a prisoner. They took down only the topmost shutters.
Some of the clerks got out a pack of cards, and asked Job to take a
hand. One said contemptuously, "Oh, you're a goody-goody, parson!"
when he refused, but the others quickly silenced him in a way that
showed their respect for Job. The cards dropped from their hands
before long, and each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Twice
during the day "the gang" and O'Donnell presented themselves at the
door with the paper, and were refused. Then all hands seemed to resign
themselves to a genuine siege. On the whole it was quiet outside,
except for the occasional jangle of voices and the sentry's pacing.

Towards night the uproar grew louder. The saloons were doing a big
business, and the sound of rollicking songs and drunken brawls was in
the air. Job grew restless and paced the office floor. About five
o'clock a delegation came for someone to meet the men at a conference
on the waste-heap back of the quartz mill. The superintendent refused
to go, and asked Job to do so. "They dare not hurt you," he said.

So between two armed, burly guards, Job went to look into the face of
the strangest audience he had ever seen. A solid throng they stood on
the bare, flat hill that rounded off at one end of the cañon below.
Irishmen, Swedes, Portuguese, Germans, Chinese, Yankees--all
nationalities were there, in overalls and blue jumpers, puffing at
long pipes, and wedged in a solid mass about an old ore car that
served as platform. Dan was speaking; he was talking of the starving
miners in "Colorady," and pointed to the office building, crying,
"We'll show them bloated 'ristocrats how nice it feels to starve!"
while a din of voices cried, "Hear! hear!"

Pushing their way to the flat-car, his muscular escorts hauled Job up
and shouted:

"The parson, lads--Mr. Job. He's goin' to talk wid yez!"

"May the Holy Mother defind him!" cried a voice in the crowd. "He's
the praist of me Tim!"

"The fraud!" cried another; "he's as bad as the rist! Nary a per cint.
would he give me yesterday!"

"Hush, ye blatherskite!" hissed another. "Give the lad a chance; he's
a-talkin'!"

Yes, Job was talking. He did his best. He expressed the utmost
sympathy with the wrongs of every man, and reminded them that they had
no truer friend in the Yellow Jacket than he. He had nursed their
sick, buried their dead, had been one of them in all the struggles of
their lives. Voice after voice in the crowd said, "That's so! Hear!
Hear!" "Hurrah fer the lad!" cried another. "Three cheers for the
little parson!"

Then he talked to them of the strike, and said every man had a right
to quit work and the Union to strike, but no man or Union had the
right to starve their fellow-beings; he spoke of the unreasonableness
of this strike--the company here was not to blame for the troubles in
Colorado; he reminded them that the times were hard and the cities
crowded with idle men, yet the company had kept them busy and given
them full wages; he urged them, if they must demand more, to go on
with work and send a committee to present their claims to the
directors.

Cheers and hisses grew louder and louder as he spoke. The storm grew
fiercer and fiercer. Job saw it was of no use. A dozen voices were
yelling, "On with the strike! Starve 'em out!" Someone--could it be
Dan?--shouted:

"Hang the hypocrite!--coming here advising his betters! String him
up!"

A loud hubbub followed. Job breathed a deep, silent prayer and stood
firm. A tall, brawny man clambered up beside him and cried, as he
brandished a pistol:

"Death to any mon that touches the kid! May all the saints keep him!"

Tim's father meant business. And through the angry mob he steered Job
back to the office in safety.

When the supper was handed in at six, the men who brought it said that
would be the last food till they signed the paper; the miners had
voted to starve them out.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RACE WITH DEATH.


"Job, you'll have to go. No one knows this country as you do, and no
one can do it but you."

It was the superintendent speaking. Huddled in a group the little
company sat in the dark, looking death in the face. Surrender, death,
or outside help, were the only alternatives. They could keep from
starvation for a day more on the provisions they had. Someone must go
through the lines and get help. They had decided that it was useless
to call on the sheriff, for he could never raise a posse large enough
to cope with this mob, now armed and well prepared. Troop A was on
duty near Wawona, guarding the Yosemite Reservation. Someone must go
and notify them, and telegraph to the Secretary of War and get orders
for them to come to the relief of the besieged men. It was a
dangerous undertaking. Even if one could pass through the line around
the office, would he ever be able to get through the streets alive?
And then would he ever get past the outer picket?

Someone must take the risk. Someone must go, and perhaps die for the
others. One of the clerks said he guessed Job was the best prepared.
The superintendent urged him to go. Finally rising, Job said he knew
both the way and the peril it meant, and he would make the attempt.

Not even to them did he tell the route he would take and the dangers
he knew he must face. He had a plan, and if it succeeded there was
hope; if it failed, there was no getting back. One silent prayer in
the corner, and he crept softly and hastily through the half-open
door, as the sentinel went down towards the other end of his beat.

There Job lay flat on the ground and waited to see who it was. In the
dim twilight he descried, as the sentinel turned, no other than Tim's
father. Job stole up to him, caught him before he cried "Halt!" and
said:

"For Tim's sake, Mr. Rooney, let me through the lines. We will starve
in there!"

"Job, me boy, is that ye!" whispered the guard. "Hiven bless ye! I
wish I could let yez t'rough, but by the saints I can't! I've sworn
that I wouldn't let a soul pass, and they said if a mon wint t'rough
the line and me here, they'd finish me!"

Job pleaded, and the tears streamed from Pat Rooney's eyes, but he was
firm; he had given his word, and he could not break it. But after what
seemed to Job a long time, Pat said:

"Job, if ye'll promise me no mon but the one ye go to see shall see
yez, and that ye'll come back to-morrow night and be here if the
soldier boys come, so no one will know I let yez t'rough, I'll let yez
go; and Job, I'll be at the ind of Sullivan's alley and pass yez; and
then the next shift I'll be here, and ye'll get in safe."

Job promised. Many times afterward he wished he had not; but he made
up his mind, as he slunk through, with Pat's "Hiven bliss ye!"
following him, that only death should prevent him from keeping his
word.

Just back of the office was the abandoned shaft where he had gone
often to pray. Once he had sounded its sides, and suspected that it
opened into the first level. If this was the case, and he could get
into that, and from that into the next lower level, Job knew that the
end of that one went clear through to the old half-finished
drainage-tunnel which ran in from the cañon back of the quartz mill.
Once in the tunnel he knew that he could reach the cañon, then get
outside the lines and away.

It took but a moment to drop down the old shaft, which ran down but a
few hundred feet on a steep slant. Then rapping softly on the wall, he
thought he heard a hollow sound. There were voices above him. He kept
still and lay down close against the side till they passed on. Then he
dug a hole, inch by inch, till he could reach his arm through. No
doubt this was the tunnel!

Finally, after what seemed hours--though it was not even one--Job had
the opening almost large enough to crawl through. Then he struck the
timbers--how was he to get through now? Well, just how, he never knew;
but he did. He dropped down to the floor of the level, lit a little
candle he had with him, ran along to the big shaft, and saw the ladder
reaching down to the next level. Then he bethought himself that his
light might be seen, so he blew it out. How could he get down the
ladder in the dark? One misstep and--he shuddered at the thought. But
he would dare it.

It was slow work, step by step; but at last he found an open space
through the boards, reached out a little lower and felt the floor of
the second level, and stepped off safe. Along the wooden rails laid
for the ore-cars he felt his way, till he began to grow confused. He
must have a light; surely no one could see it. Then he thought he
again heard voices. He stood still. He could hear his heart beat. It
was only the drip of water from the roof. He lit the candle and
hurried on. The air was close and hot, but he never stopped. On down
the long, dark cavern he made his way by the flickering light of the
fast-dying candle.

At last he reached the spot where he was sure the drainage tunnel and
the second level met. Again he dug and dug, using an old pick he found
there. He tore at the hard earth with his fingers, till he found
himself growing drowsy and faint. It was the foul air! He must get
through the wall soon, or perish where he was. The candle was gone.
Now it was a life-and-death struggle. He thought of that night in the
snow and his awful dread of death. All was so different now. A great
peace filled his soul. But he must not die; he must get through; other
lives were in his care; starving men were awaiting him; his promise to
Tim's father must be kept. At it he went again. He felt something give
way, felt a breath of fresh air that revived him, lifted a silent
thanksgiving to God, and crept through into the drainage tunnel.

The pickets on the banks above were calling, "Three o'clock and all's
well," as Job crept silently down the cañon and made for the heavy
timber of the mountain opposite.

       *       *       *       *       *

The bugle had just sounded "taps" at Camp Sheridan, on the flat
between the South Fork and the Yosemite Fall road, one mile east of
Wawona. The southern hills had echoed back its sweet, lingering notes.
The blue-coats had turned in. The officer of the guard was inspecting
the sentries, when the guard on Post Number Four saw a haggard,
white-faced young fellow, with hat gone, clothes torn, hands bleeding
from scratches, pull himself up the bank of the creek, and at the
sentry's "Halt!" look up with anxious appeal and ask for the captain.

That instinct which is sometimes quicker than thought told the guard
this was no ordinary case. In two minutes the corporal was escorting
Job to the headquarters tent. What a dilapidated object he was! For
twenty long hours he had been working his way over the rear of Pine
Mountain, down the steep sides of the Gulch, up that terrible jungle
which even the red man avoids, over the great boulders and falls of
the South Fork, and up the long miles through the primeval wilderness
to where he knew the white tents of Camp Sheridan lay.

The captain could hardly believe Job's story. The officers marveled at
the heroism of the boy. But he told it all without consciousness of
self, begged them for God's sake to lose no time, and fell over limp
and faint at the captain's feet.

When he came to, it was dawn, the troops were in the saddle, and the
sergeant was reading this telegram:

     "Proceed at once to the Yellow Jacket Mine and quell the riot
     and disorder. LAMONT."

The horses were pawing the ground, the quartermaster was hurrying to
and fro, the captain was buckling on his saber, and Job was lying on a
cot in the surgeon's tent, while that good man was feeling his pulse.

Quick as he could, Job started up. "Are they off?" he cried.

"Yes, my boy; and you lie still. They'll settle those fellows over at
the mine," was the reply.

"But, doctor, I must go! I promised Rooney! Let me go!"

"No, young man. You're plucky, but pluck won't do any more. A day or
two here will fix you all right. Your pulse has been up to a hundred
and four. You can't stir to-day."

Job was desperate. The bugle was sounding, the officers were shouting
orders. Through the door of the tent and the grove of trees he could
see troops forming.

"Send for the captain, doctor, please," he pleaded.

The captain came, heard Job's story, and shook his head.

Job was half frantic. What would Pat Rooney say? He begged the doctor
with tears in his eyes. He beseeched the captain. At last they
yielded. But how could he cross the line in the daytime? They would
have to wait till night. Finally the captain said he would wait and
send Job with a scout at dusk, and follow with the troops at midnight.

The bugle sounded recall, and the soldiers waited, so that Job could
keep his promise. All that summer day as he lay on the cot, listening
to the ripple of the spring, the neighing of the horses, the
bugle-calls, and the coming and going of the men, he thought of those
comrades shut in the store office without food, and waiting for relief
which it must seem would never come.

Just at dusk, mounted behind a sturdy little trooper, and well
disguised, Job started back. They passed around Wawona by a side
trail; and, striking the main turnpike near its junction with the
Signal Peak road, galloped on in the dark, fearing no recognition, and
well prepared to meet anyone who demanded a halt. The light was
burning in Aunty Perkins' window as they passed. It was after midnight
when they crept slowly down the timber on the other side of
Rattlesnake Gulch, and Job dismounted and stole on ahead.

A gloom rested on the Yellow Jacket. A few lights shone out of shanty
windows and in saloons. The stars seemed to rest on the top of the
smoke-stacks which rose like vast shadows in the distance. A low,
far-off murmur of voices, now rising, now dying down, stole out on the
clear night air.

Down Job crept, now on hands and knees, to the foot of Sullivan's
alley. He heard a step. The sentry was coming. Job gave the call Pat
and he had agreed upon--the sharp bark of a coyote. In an instant he
saw a flash and heard a report, as a bullet whizzed past him. Then he
heard voices:

"What was that, Jacob?"

"A leetle hund, I tinks."

"A hund? You shoot him not! You save bullets for bigger ting. See?"

Oh, where was Pat Rooney! It was fully an hour before the sentry's
pace changed and the step sounded like Pat's. Again Job barked, and a
hoot like an owl's replied. It was Tim's father! A few minutes, and
Pat had clasped him to his heart, and told him the officers were still
in the store office; that the men were desperate--they had been
drinking heavily, and, he was afraid, before another night would burn
the whole place. Would Job go back into the mine and take his chances?

Of course Job went. He slunk up the alley into a hidden passage-way he
knew of back of the Last Chance Saloon, and kept in between the
buildings till within a stone's throw of the office. There, wedged in
between two old shanties, he had to wait two hours for Pat to get on
the office beat. Oh, what a long night! Just ahead were the office and
the starving men. Between them and their rescuer a Chinaman stalked,
gun in hand, pig-tail bobbing in the night air, and eyes ever on the
alert to see an intruder. In the bar-room Job could hear the talking.
Dan Dean and O'Donnell were there. They were boasting that not a soul
outside knew of the strike; that a late telephone to Gold City showed
no one there knew; that the stage was still held at the stables; that
there was no hope for "the boss and the tyrants." To-morrow they would
sign that paper or take the consequences.

Job shuddered at the thought. Then he heard Dan chuckle over him. He
"'lowed the biggest fun would be to see that pious fraud beg for
mercy."

What if Dan knew he was listening, with only a board partition between
them! Job hardly dared to breathe.

It was getting uncomfortably near dawn when Job heard another owl's
hoot and stole past Pat Rooney up to the rear door of the old stone
office, which opened softly in a few minutes as he gave the well-known
private tap of the clerks. What a wretched, haggard lot of men rose
excitedly to meet him! He hushed them to silence, told his story, and
bade them rest and wait a few hours. Troop A would surely be here.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was daybreak, the dawn of the Fourth of July, when the sound of a
bugle aroused the miners of the Yellow Jacket. Some thought it was
some patriotic Yankee, but the clang, clang, of the old bell at the
stone tower, the calls of the sentries, the rush of hundreds of
half-dressed, excited men down the street, told everyone that trouble
was in the air.

It was all done so quickly that the miners hardly knew where they
were. The guards were on the run, and a troop of cavalry, with a solid
front, stood facing the yelling, yet terrified, mob of men who
blockaded lower Main street. It was only a hundred against five
hundred men; but it was order, discipline, authority, against
disorder, tumult and a mob. All rules were forgotten, all their plans
went for naught. Dan yelled in vain. O'Donnell grew red in the face as
he screamed orders. "Forward, march!" rang out the captain's voice,
and a hundred sabers rattled and a hundred horses started, and five
hundred terror-stricken men, each forgetful of all but himself,
started in a panic to retreat.

From the open door of the office, deserted at the first alarm by the
guards, the imprisoned officers of the company saw the mob come
surging up the street.

Before noon the Yellow Jacket was a military camp. The miners were the
prisoners, disarmed, a helpless crowd, the larger part already ashamed
of having been influenced by such a man as O'Donnell. Before nightfall
the men had personally signed an agreement to go to work on the morrow
at the old terms, and were allowed to depart to their homes. The
saloons were emptied of their liquors and closed until military law
should be relaxed, and the ringleaders were on their way to the county
jail at Gold City.

The strike was over without bloodshed, and when the men came to their
sober senses, went back to their tasks, and saw the folly of it
all--saw how they had been duped by demagogues--they were grateful
that somebody had dared to end the strike, and Job was the hero of the
hour. The reaction that sweeps over mob-mind swept him back into his
place as the idol of their hearts.

We have said the leaders of the strike were taken to Gold City. No,
not all. One lay crippled and fever-stricken in Pat Rooney's shanty
back of Finnegan's. Pat had found him when the mob rushed back, borne
down by the men he was trying to stop, and trampled on by some of the
cavalcade of horsemen as they swept up the street.

Hurried hither by Pat, Job entered the familiar hut to find himself
face to face with Dan. All that long day he sat by the side of the
delirious patient. The soldiers, when arresting the men, let Pat stay
at Job's plea. The troop surgeon came and ordered Job away. "Sick
enough yourself, without nursing this mischief-maker who's the cause
of all this bad business," said he.

But no; Job would not go. Dan was bad. Dan was his enemy, but "Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them which
despitefully use you," to Job meant watching by Dan Dean when his own
head was aching and the fever was even then creeping upon him.

All night he sat there, bathing the head that tossed restlessly to and
fro. He heard the delirious lad mutter, "Curse the pious crank! He'll
get Jane yet!" then half rise, and say with a strange look in his
eyes, "Stand fast, boys! Stand, ye cowards! It's justice we want!" and
fall back exhausted. Yes, it was Job who stood by, praying with all
his heart, as at daylight the doctor did what seemed inevitable if
Dan's life was to be saved--amputated the crushed, broken right leg.
Never again would he roam over the Sierras as he had when a boy. For
the sins of those awful days Dan was giving part of his very life.

Once he opened his eyes and saw Job, and as he caught the meaning of
it all, a queer look came over his face. Finally he muttered:

"Job, go away from me! I don't deserve a thing from you! I can stand
the pain better than seein' you fixin' me!" and a hot tear stole down
the blanched, hardened face.

But still Job stayed, as the delirium came back and the fever fought
with the doctor for the mastery. Only when the danger line seemed
past, and the noon bell was striking, Job passed out of the old
shanty, up the street by the crowds of men going to the noon shift,
heard the roar of the machinery, staggered in at the office door and
fell across the hard floor.

They were harvesting the August hay on the Pine Tree Ranch before Job
left his invalid chair on the rose-covered porch and mounted Bess for
a dash down to the mill with some of his old-time vigor.




CHAPTER XIX.

"DRIFTING."


She stood in the cabin door, where the morning sunlight stole through
the branches and vines and played around her head. Against the
well-worn post of this plain, unpainted old hut she leaned with a
far-away look in her eyes. Nineteen years ago to-day she was born here
where the hills shut in Blackberry Valley and the trees roofed it
over. From the stream yonder she had learned the ripple of childhood's
laughter; up yonder well-worn trail she had climbed these long years,
away to the great outside world--to the Frost Creek school and the
Gold City church. It was over the same trail that, wearing shoes for
almost the first time in her life, and attired in a black calico dress
and a black straw hat which the neighbors had brought her, Jane had
taken her father's rough hand, long years ago, one summer day, and
followed her mother to the grave. Ten years she had done a woman's
work to try and keep a home for Tom Reed.

How much longer would it be? The impulses and longings of a maiden's
heart were stirring within her. Father's rough, good-natured kindness
still cheered her lonely life, but the morning sun would kiss two
graves in God's Acre yonder some day instead of one. The father's step
was feeble and the years were going fast, and she would be alone.
Alone? Ah, no, not alone, for the loving Christ was hers. Ever since
the old Coyote Valley camp-meeting a new friendship, a new happiness,
had come into her life. No one who knew her could doubt it. It had
added to the natural frankness of her modest, unsophisticated nature a
staunchness of character, a womanliness, and a nobility of soul that
gave her the admiration and respect of all true hearts. Yet how few
knew her! Like earth's rarest flowers, Jane Reed's life blossomed in
this hidden dell unknown to the great world. She had the love of
Christ in her soul, and yet she longed, she knew not why, for some
strong human love to fill to its completeness the fullness of her
heart.

So she stood that morning dreaming of love--the old, old dream of
life. And who should it be? One of two, of course. No others had ever
come close enough to pay court at the portal of her soul. Job or
Dan--Dan or Job? Sooner or later her life must be linked with one or
the other. Dan cared for her. How often he had said it!--almost till
it seemed commonplace. But she had never said yes; yet somehow she
enjoyed the thought that somebody cared for her, even if it was poor
Dan. She was at his bedside yesterday, down in the long, low house at
the end of Dean's Lane, where they had brought him home from the
Yellow Jacket. She had heard of it all at once--that Job was
dangerously sick at the ranch, and Dan was crippled for life at the
lane. She wanted to go to Job. Her eyes filled as they told her of his
heroism. What a brave fellow! She brushed away the dust from the
secret shrine in her heart and worshiped him anew.

She wanted to go to him. But what would he say? How forward, how
unwomanly it would seem! Did he ever think of her? Ah! sometimes she
thought so! But he was beyond her now; she could not go to him. But
Dan would expect it. Poor Dan! He needed somebody to say a kind word.
So she had gone. She had bathed his aching head; she had told him she
was praying for him; she had left with him the blossoms picked at her
door.

Dan or Job--which should it be? In the doorway she stood dreaming till
the sun was between the tree-tops, and looked straight down the trail.
All day at her tasks she dreamed on. Twice she took her bonnet and
thought she would go to Job; then she hung it away again. There they
stood at the doorway of her soul--Dan, crippled, helpless, selfish; a
poor, wild, wandering boy. Job, strong, brave, the soul of honor, the
manliest of men, a Christian in all that word means in a young man's
life--her ideal.

There they stood on the threshold of her heart; and, lingering at
sundown in the same old doorway, the tears filling her eyes, she took
them both in--Dan to pity, comfort, cheer; Job to honor and to love.
Job was hers; perhaps he would never know it, but that day she gave
him the best a woman has--her first love.

[Illustration: (decoration)]




CHAPTER XX.

ACROSS THE MONTHS.


The next two years came and went in Grizzly county without any events
to be chronicled in the city press--no strikes or rich finds or
stirring deeds; yet they were years that counted much in some lives.

Job went back to the mines, no longer behind the pay window, but as
assistant superintendent. Never had so young a man had so responsible
a place at the Yellow Jacket. The negotiations and intercourse with
the outside world, and the complicated plans of a great company, were
not his task. He was the soul of the mine. His it was to deal with the
"hands," and stand between them and that intangible, soulless thing
men call a corporation. He was the prophet of the company and priest
pleading the needs of five hundred men at the doors of the directors.
There was nothing in the laws of the company defining his position,
and he could hardly have defined it himself. He only knew that he was
there to make life a little brighter, home a little more sacred, the
friction of business a little less, the higher part of manhood more
valuable, to five hundred hard-working men of all creeds and races
that lived on the bare mountain-side about the Yellow Jacket mine.

It was marvelous the changes that came. Personal influence and social
power told as the days went by. The saloon-keepers felt it and
grumbled, but the assistant superintendent was too great a favorite
for them to dare say much. The Sunday work ceased. Every improvement
for bettering the conditions under which the men worked was put
in--better air-pumps; a large shaft-house with dressing-rooms for the
men, to save them from going out while heated, to be exposed to
winter's cold; a hospital for the sick; lower prices at the company's
store; Finnegan's saloon enlarged and fitted up as a temperance
club-house, with not a drop of liquor, but plenty of good cheer. More
than once on Sundays Job talked to the men on eternal themes, from a
spot where, on a never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, he had once faced a
mob.

At last the company built a large, plain, attractive church, and the
miners insisted on Job's being the "parson." But he firmly declined
the honor. Yet he had his say about that church. He felt a wee bit of
pride when, crowded to the doors with Scandinavians, Irishmen,
Mongolians, Englishmen and Americans, with the Mexican and stalwart
Indian not left out, he saw the preacher on the Frost Creek circuit
and the priest from Gold City ascend the pulpit to dedicate it. It was
to be for all faiths that point heavenward, all ethics that teach the
mastery of self, all creeds that exalt Jesus Christ, all religions
that really bind back to God. The company had said it; and the men
knew that that meant Job.

It was a strange service. The Catholic choir sang "Adeste Fideles,"
and they all bowed and said the prayer of prayers. Some said "Our
Father" and some "Paternoster," and they all meant the same. Job felt
a strange thrill in his soul as all in the great audience joined in
the last reverent "Amen." Both clergymen spoke, and when the preacher
named the Savior, the Catholics crossed themselves; and when the
priest said "Blessed Jesus," the Methodists responded "Amen." Both men
caught the spirit of the hour; bigotry, creeds, conventionalities,
were forgotten. They were face to face with hungry souls; with men who
knew little of theology and ecclesiasticism, but much of actual life.
God, sin, manhood, eternity, seemed very real to those speakers that
day, and they made it plain to the tear-stained, sin-scarred faces
that looked into theirs. When at last it was over and the priest had
said "Dominus vobiscum" and the parson said "amen," Job slipped out of
the rear door to escape the crowd and to pray for the Yellow Jacket
and its five hundred men, while a voice whispered to his soul,
"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye have done
it unto me."

These years had made great changes in Andrew Malden. Since that
night-watch at Pine Tree Ranch, he had been a different man. Tony and
Hans felt it; the mill men commented on it; the world of Gold City
began to realize that the master of Pine Tree Mountain possessed a
heart. The old town had more public spirit than for years, and
everybody knew that it was "Judge" Malden, inspired by a life close to
his own, who was back of all the improvements. But not everybody was
pleased with his influence in public matters, and when the Board of
Supervisors one spring refused to renew the license of the Monte
Carlo, and passed an ordinance against gambling, all the baser element
in Gold City united in bitter hatred against the one who they knew
possessed the political power that brought these things to pass.

From that day Grizzly county saw an immense struggle for supremacy
between righteousness and vice, in the persons of the two political
leaders, Andrew Malden and "Col. Dick." Col. Dick was the most
clerical-looking man in the community. Always dressed in immaculate
white shirt, long coat and white tie, with his smooth face and
piercing black eyes, no stranger would have dreamed, as he received
his polite bow on the street, that this was the most notorious
character in Grizzly county, the manipulator of its politics, the
proprietor of its worst haunt, the most heartless man who ever stood
behind a bar in a mining camp. But Richard Lamar--or, as all
familiarly knew him, Col. Dick, in honor of his traditional war
record--was all this. For nearly twenty years he had stood coolly
behind that bar mixing drinks and planning politics. All men feared
him. Only one man ever refused to drink with him, so far as is known,
and then everybody who could, steered clear of jury duty on that case,
and those who could not escape pronounced his death due to
heart-failure.

The election the next year was the most hotly contested ever held in
the county. Job used all the personal influence he had in the Yellow
Jacket; Andrew Malden himself personally canvassed every house in the
county where there was the slightest hope. Tony said, "Bress de Lawd!
guess de old Marse and de gray team done gone de rounds, an' ebery dog
in de county knows 'em!"

Dan, poor Dan, limping through the crowd on crutches, was Col. Dick's
chief lieutenant, and used with the utmost shrewdness the "cash" which
the saloon interest placed at his disposal. He knew by election day
the price of every salable vote in the county. The night before
election excitement ran high; a scurrilous sheet came out with
cartoons of Andrew Malden and "Gambler Teale's kid." All the hard
things that could be said were said. That night, before an audience
that filled the old church and hung on the windows and packed the
steps, Job made a speech which thrilled the souls of them all. He told
his life story; told of what rum had done for him and his, told of
Yankee Sam and the scene at his death, till hardened men wiped away
the tears. No cut-and-dried temperance lecture was his. He talked of
life as all knew it, of Gold City and facts no one could deny; talked
till waves of deepest emotion passed over the crowd like the wind over
grain on the far-reaching prairies. The meeting broke up with cheers
and hisses, and men went out to face a fight at the polls that was
talked of for many a long day afterward.

The ringing of the old church bell at dark on election day, the cheers
sounding everywhere up and down the streets, the sour, scowling faces
of Col. Dick and Dan as they slunk down the alley and in back of the
Monte Carlo, told a story which thrilled the hearts of good
citizens--that righteousness and good government had won.

That night, between midnight and dawn, Andrew Malden's lumber mill
went up in flame and smoke. Who did it? No one knew; no one doubted.
The north wind was blowing, and the mill hands worked vigorously,
worked heroically--it meant bread and butter to them--but they could
not save it. Only great heaps of ashes, twisted iron, a lone
smoke-stack and great piles of ruined machinery, were left to tell the
story, where for many years the whirl of industry had made music
beside Pine Tree Creek.

Yet the man who had once sworn to shoot his enemy at sight uttered no
complaint or showed the least spirit of revenge. He came and stood in
the night air and watched the flames lick up the old mill, stood with
the ruddy glow lighting up his furrowed face, and with never a word
turned and went home.

Dan was drifting further and further into the downward life; and yet,
strange to say, it had lost its charm for him. That night when the
election failed and Col. Dick scored him for not doing his best, he
parted company with the Colonel and the Monte Carlo. More and more
strongly two passions ruled his life. One was love for Jane Reed; the
love of a man conscious of his own utter badness for that holy life he
secretly envies and outwardly scorns. The other was hatred for Job
Malden, who, ever since he came upon the stage in the long ago, had
stood between Daniel Dean and all his ambitions.

So the world moved on, the world of Grizzly county, hid away among the
grand old mountains and lofty pines of the Sierras. Impulses were
passing into deeds; actions and thoughts were crystallizing into
character--character that should endure when the pines had passed into
dust, when the mountains had tottered beneath the hand of the Creator,
when earth itself had sunk into endless space and the story of Gold
City had forever ended.

[Illustration: (decoration)]




CHAPTER XXI.

THE YOSEMITE.


"Well, Bess, old girl, we're off now for the jolliest time out!" cried
Job as he vaulted into the saddle one June day, bound for the Yosemite
Valley, that wonderful spot of which Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote on the
old hotel register: "The only place I ever saw that came up to the
brag."

Job had left the Yellow Jacket forever. The years were beginning to
tell on the strong man of Pine Tree Mountain and Job was needed at
home. So he had come. Standing one night on Lookout Point, watching
the setting sun gild the far-off crown of El Capitan, he had resolved
that before its glow once more set on the monarch's brow, he would
mount Bess and be off to see again the sights on which old El Capitan
had looked down for innumerable centuries. Perhaps the knowledge that
Jane was there camping with her invalid father, who fancied that a
summer in the valley would make his life easier, had something to do
with the decision.

It was on one of those beautiful mornings in the California mountains
which come so often and yet are always a rare, glad surprise, that
Job, mounted on Bess, went singing down through the pasture gate, down
past the charred ruins of the mill, past the familiar entrance to
Dean's Lane, on toward the Frost Creek road and Wawona. It was a very
familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted
Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and,
leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood
prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot
fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down
the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot
of tourists up to the Wawona Hotel, sprang off Bess, turned her over
to a hostler and went into the office to register for the night.

That load of tourists furnished ample amusement for Job all that
summer evening. He had read of such people, but this was the first
time he had ever met them. There was the fat man, jovial and happy,
always cracking a joke, who shook the dust off what had been that
morning, before he began a ride of more than forty miles by stage, a
respectable coat, and laughed merrily till it nearly choked him. There
was the tall dude, with wilted high collar and monocle on his right
eye, drawling about this "Bloomin' dirty country, don'cher know."
Striding up and down the veranda with a regular tread that shook the
long porch, with clerical coat buttoned up to the throat, and high
silk hat which was not made for stage travel, was Bishop Bowne. His
temper seemed unruffled by the vexations of the day as he remarked,
"Magnificent scenery. Makes me think of Lake Como, only lacks the
lake. Regular amphitheater of mountains. Reminds one of the Psalmist's
description of Jerusalem." Darting here and there, trying to get
snap-shots, were two "kodak fiends," two city girls who pointed the
thing at you, bungled over it, reset it, pressed the button, and
giggled as they flew off. They fairly bubbled over with delight as
they saw Job, and debated how much to offer to get him to sit for a
scene of rustic simplicity out by the toll-gate.

But Job was too busy to notice. He was being systematically
interviewed by the fat, fussy woman in black who was asking him,
"S'pose you've seen Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, and Colorado
Springs? Great place; we spent a whole half day there. No? Been to
Monterey, of course, round the drive? We did it! Foggy, couldn't see a
blessed thing; but it's fine; had to do it. What! never been there?
Too bad, young man. Oh, there's nothing like doing the world. I've
seen Paris, Rome, the Alps, Egypt. Oh, my! I couldn't tell how much!
Sarah Bell, she knows; she's got it down in her note-book. Dear me! I
must go and see what time we can start back for this place over
there--what do you call it? Some Cemet'ry?"

"Yosemite," suggested Job.

"Oh, yes, Yosemitry. We ought to go right back to-morrow. We've got to
do Alaska in this trip, or we'll never hear the end of it when we get
back East. Nothing like doing the world, young man," said she, as she
adjusted her bonnet and eye-glasses and hurried off to the office,
where he heard her an hour later lamenting, "Sarah Bell, we have got
to stay a whole precious day in that Cemet'ry before we can go back!"

It was late when the babble of voices died away, the stars kept watch
through the tall pines of Wawona, and Job fell asleep to the piping of
the frogs in the pond back of the hotel and the pawing of horses in
the long barn across the square.

[Illustration: Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point]

"Inspiration Point!" called out the driver, as Job pulled up Bess the
next day alongside the stage as it stood on the summit of that spot
where the road from Wawona, which for miles has climbed up through the
forest past Chinquapin and many a stage station, climbs still higher
through the rare air of seven thousand feet, and then hurries down
through the leaves of the trees, turns a bend and emerges in full view
of the grand Yosemite.

There it lay in all its grandeur--the unroofed temple of God, Nature's
great cathedral. Three thousand feet down, level as the floor, sunk
beneath the surrounding mountains which stretched away to right and
left in a gigantic mass, it lay clothed in a carpet of green grass and
trees so far below that they seem to merge into one. Cut by a silvery
stream that winds lazily amid the Edenic beauty, as if loath to be
away, the valley a mile wide stretches back for nearly six miles, and
then is lost to view as it wanders around the jutting peaks of the
Three Sisters and climbs on for five more miles to the falls of the
Merced, as they come tumbling down from the region of perpetual snow
to that of perpetual beauty.

To the left is old El Capitan, three thousand feet high, and with
width equal to height and depth to width--a mountain of solid rock.
Well did the Bishop lift his hat, and, standing in silent awe, at last
say, "The judgment throne of God." Far beyond it the silvery line of
the Yosemite Creek reached the straight edge of the cliff and shot
down twenty-six hundred feet. To the right, Bridal Veil Falls, a tiny
brooklet it seemed in the distance, winding down a mountain meadow,
looking frightened a moment at the edge of the cliff, leaping over
into spray, caught up and transfigured by the afternoon sun, as it
fell on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Beyond it, Cathedral Rocks,
the Three Sisters and a mass of jutting summits stretching ever on
till they were lost to view. Beyond and between them all, between and
back, El Capitan and the Sentinel Peak, looming up, as the Bishop
said, like "the sounding-board of the ages." From far away rose the
Half Dome, at whose feet the famous little lake mirrors again and
again the morning sun as it drives away the shadows of night from this
home of the sublime.

Job instinctively bared his head and found himself repeating, "Before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth,
from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God."

Just then the silence was broken by the voices in the stage. "Ain't it
pretty?" said the giggler. "Well, now, is that the Cemet'ry? Do tell!
Driver, you're sure we can go back to-day? We've seen it now!" said
the fussy woman. The practical man was asking the driver for minute
statistics and copying them down in his book, the dude was yawning and
hoping there would be a dance at the hotel, while the Bishop got out
and, walking away from the rest, stood and looked and looked and
looked, till Job heard him intoning in a voice in keeping with the
grandeur of the scene, "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker
of heaven and earth."

Job stayed behind as the stage rattled down the side of the mountain,
tethered Bess by a big cedar, lay in a grassy nook and looked down,
down, where the Merced abutted the base of El Capitan and tumbled down
the narrow cañon that leads from the valley far below to the plains.
All the reverence of his soul, all that was noble and lofty in him,
rose as he gazed upon the scene. The littlenesses, the meannesses of
the world, were left far behind. Like Moses of old, he was in the
cleft of the mountains and the glory of Jehovah lay stretched out
before him.

It was toward sunset when he reached the floor of the valley and
walked Bess across the three bridges that span the branches of the
Bridal Veil Creek, saw the bow of promise in the misty spray that
seemed to ever hang in mid-air against the cliffs, galloped down the
Long Meadow, past the Valley Chapel, and pulled up at the Sentinel
House for the night.

That night the silver gleam of the Yosemite itself looked in at his
window, as the new moon shone on its waters falling from the endless
heights above, and the ripple of those waters soothed him to sleep as
they rolled past his door, under the bridge and away down the valley.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a most romantic little spot just across the bridge near the Falls
of the Yosemite, and where the icy creek hides itself in bushes and
reappears under the bridge, stood an abandoned Indian wick-i-up, half
hid among the saplings. Here, throwing flap-jacks into the air with a
toss over a crackling camp-fire, singing merrily, Job found Jane the
next morning as he was roaming the valley in the early hours on Bess'
back. It was a genuine surprise. She was not expecting him, even if
she had dreamed of him all night. Her first impulse was to express
with childish glee her real delight, but her very joy made her
reserved. She restrained herself lest she should display her real
feelings. She was glad to see him, of course; her father was better,
and was off getting wood for the fire. Were the folks all well? Had he
seen Dan lately? (Which question cut Job deeper that he liked to
acknowledge.) Would she go up to Mirror Lake after breakfast? he
asked. Certainly, if father did not need her.

So a little later, leaving Bess neighing behind in the camp, up the
long, dusty road Jane and Job rambled on, past the pasture and the
Royal Arches, on along the river bank, and, turning away to the left,
climbed on the rise of ground into that nook where the South Dome
seems almost to meet the Half Dome, and stood by the glassy waters of
Mirror Lake. In that early hour before the ripples had stirred the
surface, this lakelet at the foot of the Half Dome was worthy of all
its romantic fame. Nine times that morning Job and Jane saw the sun
rise over the rounded peak of the Half Dome, as they followed slowly
the shores of the lake from sun-kissed beach to shadow. Jane went into
ecstasies. Was it not beautiful! What a picture! The clear-cut rocky
mountain, its low edges fringed with trees, its top so bare, the blue
sky and passing clouds, that bright spot which rose so quickly far
back of the topmost turn of the Dome, all mirrored at their feet.

Job's esthetic nature was stirred to its depths, and he echoed Jane's
adjectives. Before they reached camp she had yielded to his appeal for
another walk to-morrow, perhaps to Glacier Point and home by
moonlight.

That night Job took his blankets from the hotel and stole over back of
the Reeds' camp, just beyond the Indian's "cache" on the gentle slope
of the open valley where the great wall of Eagle Peak rises four
thousand feet. Among a lot of boulders which look for all the world
like tents in the twilight, there, between two great pines, he lay
down to watch the moonlight fade from Glacier Point yonder across the
valley, and fell asleep at last to dream of the Berkshire Hills, the
winding Connecticut, and the scenes of childhood days.

It must have been three o'clock--it was dark, very dark, though the
stars were shining brightly--when something awoke him. He roused to
find himself striking his nose on either side in a strange manner.
Fully awake, he discovered the cause. Two tribes of ants living on
opposite pine trees had completed a real estate bargain that night and
had decided to change homes. By some chance they found his face in
their pathway, but, perfectly fearless of the giant sleeping there,
had kept on their journey, passing each other on the bridge of his
nose. As he woke, the tramp of myriad feet crossed that feature, the
procession for the right marching over between his eyes; the
procession for the left, over the point. Silently, boldly, the mighty
host climbed his cheeks, surmounted the pass, and hurried down, till,
with many a desperate slap, Job at last sprang up, thoroughly awake.
Ants, ants, ants--millions of them! Ants in his shoes, ants running
off with his hat, ants in his pockets. It was an hour before the giant
had conquered the dwarfs and Job was asleep again, well out of the way
of any tree.

[Illustration: Mirror Lake, Yosemite.]

The sun was shining in his eyes, the Indian's little black cur had
come up and was barking at him from a respectful distance, and from
behind a tree Job heard a girl's merry laugh, when he awoke the next
morning.




CHAPTER XXII.

GLACIER POINT.


Mountains, mountains, mountains! Piled up like Titanic boulders,
snow-capped and ice-bound, tumbling down from the far-off glassy sides
of Mt. Lyell and Mt. Dana to the edge of that stupendous chasm.
Gleaming glaciers, great ice rivers, eternal snow drifts, dark, bare,
rugged peaks for a background. For a foreground, all the beauty of the
valley far below you, three thousand feet or more, as, holding your
breath, you gaze straight down the dizzy height from the projecting
table rock. El Capitan on the left, the Yosemite Falls dancing down in
three great leaps opposite; the Half Dome and Cloud's Rest off to the
right, Vernal and Nevada Falls pouring their torrent over the cliffs
at your side, the Hetchy-Hetchy Valley, the rolling plateau that
stretches back to the perpetual snow and rising peaks behind you. All
language falters here. Tongue can never describe, only the soul feels,
the awfulness, the vastness, the sublimity, the stupendousness, the
wild grandeur of the scene. Such is Glacier Point.

Here, speechless, overawed, and with the loftiest emotions sweeping
over their souls, Job Malden and Jane Reed stood alone amid a silence
broken only by the sighing of the trees back of them.

It was toward sunset of a June afternoon. For hours they had been
climbing up the long, steep, winding trail that picks its way along
the side of the cliff from back of the Valley Chapel toward Sentinel
Peak, over the jutting point, and over the cliff's edge to this
wonderful spot. Weary and foot-sore, they had reached it, only to have
all thought of self overwhelmed and forgotten in that vision of
visions which burst upon their eyes and souls. How long they stood
there in utter silence they knew not. Time was lost in eternity. At
last the tears began to trickle down Jane's cheeks and she sobbed, "It
is grand, it is too grand! I have seen God! I cannot look any more!"
while Job stood entranced, forgetful of Jane, forgetful of self,
utterly absorbed in the consciousness of infinite power. Then he began
to repeat in a solemn voice that favorite Psalm of his: "I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help
cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth."

The saucy call of a squirrel in a tall pine near, the chill of the
evening air coming down from the ice-fields, brought them at last to a
consciousness of themselves. Withdrawing to a sheltered nook away from
the dizzy cliff, and so hid among the trees that all view was shut off
except that scene of dazzling beauty, the glitter of the setting sun
on the distant Lyell glacier, Job and Jane sat down for the first real
heart-to-heart talk they had ever known in their lives. They talked of
the years gone by; of the outward story that the world may read, of
the inner story that only the heart knows. Their theme was Christ,
their mutual Friend, who had been the cheer and strength of all those
years. Memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime that night. Jane
talked of childhood days, of her mother's grave and Blackberry Valley,
and of the old camp-meeting in Pete Wilkins' barn on that
never-to-be-forgotten Saturday night, when, lonely and heart-broken,
she had knelt on the hard floor at the bench and whispered, "Just as I
am, without one plea." Then her face brightened as she looked up and
said, "Oh, Job, He came, and I was so happy! And, somehow, home has
not been so lonely since then, and--I don't know; it may seem strange
to you, Job--Jesus is just as real to me as you are. He is with me all
the time; and, when I am tired, he says, 'Come unto me, and I will
give you rest'; when father is so cross, and the tears just will come,
he whispers, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid. My peace I give unto you.' And he does. It comes so sweetly,
and I feel so still, so rested! I know he is right beside me. Isn't it
grand, Job, to feel we are His and He will always love us, and that He
is so near us? It seems as if I heard His step now and He was standing
by us. I know He is. I like that hymn we sang Communion Sunday--'Fade,
fade, each earthly joy, Jesus is mine.'"

A moment they sat in silence, while the sun transformed the far-off
glacier into a lake of glory, and then sank behind El Capitan for the
night. Then Job spoke. A long while he talked. The memories of
childhood; the sweet face that grew strangely white in the city of the
plains and left him; the early days at Pine Tree Ranch; the steps of a
downward life; that grand old camp-meeting and what it did for him--of
these he spoke, and yet did not cease. The years of youth and young
manhood, the bitter persecutions and temptations, the triumphs through
the personal presence and help of the Master, were his theme. For the
first time a human friend learned the real story of that awful night
in the second tunnel and the long, long day in the lonely Gulch. The
young man grew excited and stood up as he paid loving tribute to the
reality of religion in his life and the tender, most divine friendship
of Jesus Christ. Then he hesitated; but only for a moment. He told her
of his sins; of those days of doubt when he yielded to the tempter's
power and how near he came to losing his soul. He could not finish it,
but strode off alone. At last he came, and, sitting down, said:

"Jane, all I am I owe to Jesus Christ. The story of his love, and what
he has been to me, is more wonderful than any story of fiction. 'More
wonderful it seems than all the golden fancies of all our golden
dreams.'"

[Illustration: View from Glacier Point.]

The twilight was deepening, the great mountains were fading away in
the distance, the evening star was just peering over the horizon as,
standing together by the iron rail that protects Table Rock--standing,
as it seemed, in the choir loft of the eternities, they sang
together--Job in his rich tenor, Jane in her sweet soprano:

    "All hail the power of Jesus' name,
      Let angels prostrate fall.
    Bring forth the royal diadem,
      And crown him Lord of all."

As the moonlight stole down from the mountain summits to the edge of
the further cliff and then plunged down to light the valley, Job and
Jane still sat and talked. Was it strange that somehow the hidden love
of long years would out that night, and, talking of life's holiest
experiences and secret longings and loftiest dreams, somehow, before
they knew it, they talked of love? Secrets locked in the heart's
deepest chambers found voice that night. The unuttered longings of the
years found language. Not as children prattle of sudden impulses, not
as Job had blushed and simpered once; but with the consciousness of
manhood and womanhood, and divinity within, they talked of how their
lives had grown together till, in all that is holy and best, they were
already one.

At last they started down the trail. It was late. The moon had crossed
the sky dome of the valley and was hastening toward Eagle Peak. A
peace and silence that could be felt filled the world, and found a
deep response in their souls. They were going down from the Mount of
Transfiguration, one with God, one with each other. Love, pure and
holy, was master of their lives. A joy unspeakable filled their
hearts. The culmination of the years had come. With the forests and
mountains for witness, under the evening sky, with innumerable worlds
looking down, with the presence of Infinite Power all about them, Jane
Reed and Job Malden had, once for all, plighted their love to God and
each other.




CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CANON TRAIL.


It was just four days later, the day before the Fourth, that Job,
mounted on Bess, rode up to Camp Comfort, as Jane called the little
spot where she kept house in the open air for her father, listening to
the roar of the Yosemite Falls back of her, and prepared their humble
meals over the camp-fire. Job was going home; the old man would
expect him on the Fourth, and that keen sense of duty which was ever
stronger than his longing to linger near Jane, impelled him to go. He
had come to say good-by. Old Tom Reed, sick and selfish, had been
blind to the new light in Jane's eyes and did not know the secret
which the birds and trees and sky had learned and seemed never to
cease whispering about to Jane. He did not like Job. That pride of
poverty which hates success put a gulf between him and this noble
young fellow, who looked so manly as he rode up on Bess. Tom Reed
liked Dan and thought, of course, that matters were settled between
him and his black-eyed daughter. He felt to-day like telling this
young aristocrat from the Pine Tree Ranch that it would be agreeable
to both himself and Jane if he would seek other company. Only physical
weakness kept him from following as Jane walked away by Job's side
patting Bess' neck. She would see him to the end of the valley, she
said; she did not mind the walk. Well, if she would--and what did Job
want better than that?--she must mount Bess and let him walk. How
pretty she looked on Bess' black back, with her shining hair and
flashing eyes and ruddy cheeks! Never had she looked handsomer to Job.
Close at her side he kept as Bess slowly walked down across the river
bridge, past the Sentinel House, and on close to the Bridal Veil
Falls.

As the rainbow in the spray, with its iridescent colors, laughed at
them through the trees, Job thought of the gala day coming, when he
should claim this noble girl for his bride, and an honest pride filled
his heart. At the foot of Inspiration Point they tarried for a full
hour, it was so hard to say good-by. How he hated to take Bess from
her! At last a sudden thought came to him. She should keep Bess in the
valley till the autumn days came and Jane could return home. He would
go back over the Merced Cañon trail, only twenty-six miles to his
home; he had often wanted to try it and cross the river on Ward's
cable. He could not go that way on horseback, and he would leave
Bess. He would like to think of Jane and her as together. The girl
protested, but she felt a secret joy. It would be next to having him.
So she did not dismount, but through her tears saw Job vanish down the
cañon, along the Rapids, towards the old, almost forgotten trail that
leads for twenty miles by the river's roaring torrent, to where the
South Fork joins the North Fork.

A sudden impulse seized her. She turned Bess' head toward the toll
road and began to climb the steep three miles to Inspiration Point.
Then she hunted for the Cliff Trail that leads away from the road out
along the great left precipice of the cañon. She knew there must be
some opening in the forest over there. She remembered it from the
valley below, the day she had gone down by the Rapids. She would find
it and catch one last glimpse of Job on the trail. She would wave to
him, and perhaps he would see her. She had Bess, and it would not take
long to return; father would not miss her.

Just as she turned into the trail a campers' wagon climbed the hill
back of her and passed on over the road, but she did not notice it,
she was so absorbed in her own thoughts. She must hurry. Would Job see
her? Anyway she would surely see him--she would dismount and creep out
to where nothing could hide her view.

       *       *       *       *       *

Far below Job was already on his march homeward. With a swinging gait,
and a determined will that said he must do it, though all the love in
his heart said no, Job started off through the trees and on down the
cañon trail. His eyes were misty and a lump was in his throat, as he
caught one last glimpse of Jane. On he hurried. He was off now, and
the sooner he got home the better. By rapid walking and some hard
climbing he would reach Indian Bill's old cabin, ten miles down the
river, by night.

He had just resolved on this, leaped over a creek stealing down far
behind El Capitan, got full in sight of the roaring rapids, when he
heard a step behind him and looked up to see Indian Bill himself
coming. The old trapper was a well-known character in the mountains.
His great brown feet looking out beneath torn blue overalls, his
dark-skinned chest wrapped in a blanket of many colors, his long
straight hair falling from beneath a well-worn sombrero, formed a
familiar sight all over those mountains. Those feet had tramped every
mountain pass and rugged trail and had climbed every lofty peak for a
hundred miles about the Yosemite.

His approach was a glad surprise to Job. He could wish no better
companion over that lonely trail which led along the precipitous sides
of the cañon, with straight walls towering above it and steep descents
reaching below to the Merced's angry waters, which dash for twenty
miles over gigantic boulders with a fury unrivaled by Niagara itself.

Soon Indian Bill was driving away Job's gloom as, in his queer
dialect, he told one of his trapper stories while the two swung on at
regular gait, close upon each other's heels. Over the steep grades,
through the deep, shaded ravines, and along the bare cliffs on that
narrow trail, they went. They had gone a mile down the stream, when
Job noticed something moving, high on the opposite cliff. He called
his companion's attention to it, and the keen-eyed Indian said it was
a horseman mounted on a black steed. Job thought of Jane, but at once
said to himself that it could not be she--she was back at Camp Comfort
by this time. A little later, Bill said the horse was now riderless
and standing by a tree, and that a bit of something white was moving
on the face of the cliff.

Just then they heard a terrible roar, and both forgot all else in the
queer sensation that seized them. All the world seemed to sway before
Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing
of life. His feet slipped on the narrow edge of a steep cliff he was
crossing, the gravel beneath gave way, and Job found himself lying at
the foot of a steep incline, while a whole fusillade of stones was
flying past him. A moment, and it was over, and the Indian said:

"Ugh! Heap big earthquake! Great Spirit mad! Come."

But Job could not easily come. His foot was doubled up under him and
sharp pains were darting through it. Indian Bill sprang to his
assistance, fairly carried him up the steep side of the precipice,
from whence, fortunately for him, he had fallen on soft earth, and put
him on his feet on the trail. Oh, that long walk over the jutting
points, down among the boulders, and up again on places of the trail
that seemed suspended between earth and sky! Every step brought a
groan to Job's lips. He grew feverish and thirsty. Bill parted a bunch
of almost tropical ferns which grew against the rocks, and led Job in
to a place where, through the stone roof of a dark cañon, the ice-cold
water trickled down drop by drop. It was well toward dusk when Job
dropped exhausted on the trail, and the hardy Indian slung him over
his shoulder, bore him up a narrow cañon that entered the main gorge
on the right, and laid him down on his own blankets in the little
wick-i-up made of twisted limbs and twigs that he called home. Soon
the crackling fire warmed the water, the sprained foot was bandaged,
and Job was asleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a strange scene on which Job opened his eyes the next morning.
He was lying on a bed of cedar boughs, wrapped in an old gray blanket,
and with one of many colors under him. A roof of gray and green was
over him, the forest's foliage woven into a tent. Through the parted
branches he could see the brown-skinned Indian bending over a ruddy
fire from whence the savory odor of frying trout stole in. Through an
avenue of green down the narrow cañon, he could see the morning sun
shining on the waters of the Merced which tumbled over the great
rocks. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain shot through his foot. Far
away he heard the call of a bird, and out by the fire the weird
strains of a monotonous folk-song rose in the air. Job closed his eyes
and sent up a morning prayer. In it he tried to pray for Jane, but
somehow could not. She was safe, he knew; probably at the fire, too,
in the beautiful valley from whence those rushing waters came.

The trout breakfast was over--Bill knew where to get the beauties,
and, after he had got them, knew how to cook them--when Job learned
from the old trapper that he was to be his guest for a week; that not
before then would he be able to continue the journey home, and that
Bill would do his best to care for him till the sprained foot was well
again. At first he rebelled. He must get home, he said; Andrew Malden
was expecting him. But the Indian only grunted and sat in silence, as
Job tried to walk and fell back upon the blankets with the realization
that Bill was right.

All day the Indian pottered about in silence, fixing his traps and
guns, and weaving a pair of moccasins for winter's use, while Job lay
half asleep, half awake, living over again the glories of the week
just closing. Toward evening the old Indian came in and sat by his
guest and began to talk. Far into the night hours, while the camp-fire
flashed and crackled without, he kept up his stories, till Job,
intensely interested, forgot his pains and his dreams. In quaint
English, shorn of all unnecessary words, Bill talked on.

First he told bear stories, finishing each thrilling passage with a
significant "Ugh!" The one that roused Job most and held him
transfixed was of once when he suddenly met, coming out of the forest,
a giant grizzly, which rose on his monster hind feet and advanced for
the death embrace. "Me fire gun heap quick, kill him all dead, he
fall, hit Bill, arm all torn, blood come, me sick. Ugh!" And turning
back his blanket, he showed Job the scars from the grizzly's dying
blow.

Then he told tales of adventure. Of scaling the Half Dome by means of
the iron pegs some daring climber had left there, and how finally,
reaching the summit and lying flat, he peered over and saw himself
mirrored in the lake below. He told of a wild ride down the icy slope
of the Lyell Glacier; of a night, storm-bound, in the Hetchy-Hetchy,
where he slept under the shelter of a limb drooping beneath the snow,
with a group of frightened mountain birds for bedfellows. He told of
beautiful parks far amid the solitude of the high Sierras, great
mountain meadows where shy deer grazed, of crystal lakes that lay
embowered in many a hidden mountain spot, of Mount Ritter's grandeur
and the dizzy heights of Mount Whitney, till Job's head reeled, and he
fell asleep that night dreaming of standing on the jagged, topmost
summit of a lofty peak, with all the mountains going round and round
below him, till he grew dizzy and fell and fell--and found himself
wide awake, listening to the hoot of a distant owl and the breathing
of his tawny host stretched out under the sky by the dying embers of
the camp-fire.

During the next two days Job was much alone. Bill came and went on
many a secret, stealthy errand to where he knew the largest, most
toothsome mountain trout had their home. Busy with his own thoughts,
Job lay and dreamed the long hours away.

"Make Bill feel bad. Want hear it? Ugh! Me tell it; me there. No
brave; little boy. Bad day, bad day!"

It was the fourth day and Job was trying to persuade Bill to tell him
about the dreadful massacre of the Yosemite in the years gone by. The
fitful firelight played about the solemn face which showed never a
quiver as that night Bill told the story which made Job's blood run
cold.

[Illustration: Sentinel Rock.]

It was in the long-gone years when the miners first came into the
mountains. Living quietly in the beautiful valley to which they had
given their name, his tribe dwelt. Wild children of nature, they had
for many a century had the freedom of those hills. Far and wide on
many a hunting expedition they had roamed, and none had said nay. But
the pale-face, the greedy pale-face, came and stole the forests and
creeks yonder. Twice, enraged at their depredations, the Indians had
sallied forth from their homes and rent the hills about Gold City with
their war-cries, then retreated to the mountain fastnesses of which
the pale-face knew nothing. Once more they had gone on the war-path,
and started back, to find the whites at their heels. To the very edge
of the cliffs they had been followed, and their refuge was no longer a
secret--the world had heard the story of the giant's chasm in the
Sierras.

When they had gone up on the great meadows back of Yosemite Falls and
El Capitan to live, there came a great temptation. The Mono Lake
Indians, far over the pass, had stolen a lot of fine horses from the
miners of Nevada. They hated the Mono Lake Indians. They watched their
chance, and, while they were off on a great hunting trip, the
Yosemites stole over the crest of the Sierras and brought a hundred
head of horses back with them. Then the aged Indian went on without a
tremor. He told how, one summer day, he was playing with the other
boys around a great tree, when he heard the wild war-whoop of the
Monos; he saw them coming in their war-paint, mounted on mad, rushing
horses; heard the whirr of arrows about him; ran and hid in a cleft of
the great rocky cliff, out of sight but not of seeing; saw his mother
scalped and thrust back into the burning tepee and his father pushed
headlong over the cliff; heard the death-cries of the Yosemites; saw
the meadow bathed in blood; saw the end of the Yosemites; and crept
down with a few survivors late that night to the valley and escaped to
the whites. "'Bloody meadow,' white man call it. Him good name. Wish
Mono come now--I kill! I kill!" and, with dramatic gesture that almost
startled Job, the old man waved his arms and was silent.

Somehow after that the conversation drifted to religion. Bill talked
of the Great Spirit, Job talked of God. The old story of the
Incarnation--how this Great One came down to live among men and love
us all--Job told as best he could, till the hard heart of the child
of nature was touched, and he wanted to know if Job thought He loved
poor Indian Bill. It was very late, when Job came back to the awful
massacre, and tried to show Bill that the manly thing was not to cry,
"I kill, I kill," but "I forgive."

The old man listened in silence. He walked out under the stars, then
came back and sat down by Job's side and said, "Bill heap bad. Bill
hate Mono Indian." Again and again he paced back and forth.

Job was almost asleep, weary with watching the heart-struggles of the
wronged old man, when at last he came and said, "Boy, ask Great Spirit
forgive Bill. Bill forgive Mono Indian." And there, at midnight, the
love that transfigured Hebrew Peter, German Luther, English Wesley,
that had changed Job Malden, transformed Indian Bill.

It was fully two weeks after the old trapper had borne him into his
humble tent that one afternoon Job walked off, strong and brave, to
finish his journey home. Bill saw him down to the river, where you
swing across on a board hung on a cable, helped pull the return ropes
that carry the novel car across, shouted as Job clambered up the other
bank, "Bill heap glad! Love Mono! Love Job! Good-by!" and was off out
of sight through the woods as swift and lithe as a deer, bound on
another of his hunting trips far back of El Capitan.

Job saw him vanish; and, turning with a light heart and a merry song,
climbed the ridge that separates the North Fork from the South Fork,
fairly ran down past the old tunnels of the Cove Mine, skipped over
the iron bridge, and began the steady climb of six miles home.

[Illustration: (decoration)]




CHAPTER XXIV.

"GETHSEMANE."


It was evening and Tony was carrying the milk from the barn to the
milk-house, when Job tripped down the trail from Lookout Point, and
Shot and Carlo ran barking to meet him. A sort of momentary
consciousness that Bess was not there came to him, then something that
sounded like her neigh reached his ears. A shout to Tony--who in his
surprise dropped the milk pail and vanished--a bound, and Job was on
the veranda. He pushed open the door, and stood face to face with
Andrew Malden.

The old man's face was white and deeply furrowed. He looked ten years
older than when Job had seen him last, and the young man felt a sharp
pang of remorse to think he had left him. Then he remembered Jane and
knew he would not have missed the trip for all the world.

At sight of him Andrew Malden's face grew still whiter, he started
back as if shot, and fell in a faint on the couch. Job was appalled
and greatly mystified, as he dashed water into the wrinkled, haggard
face.

At last the old man's eyes opened and he whispered hoarsely, "Oh, Job!
Job! how could you? Once I could have believed it, but I cannot now!
Oh, Job, tell me! tell me all! I'll stand by you, though you did
it--you're my boy still! Oh, Job, it is awful, awful! But I knew you
would come! Oh, Job! oh, Job!" he moaned.

Did what? "Awful"? "Come"? Of course he had come. It was an accident,
Job explained; he did not mean to stay away.

"An accident? Oh, yes, I told them so, Job; but they won't believe it.
They are coming to take my boy and--oh, I can't stand it! I won't
stand it!" and Andrew Malden tottered to and fro across the room.

Was the old man insane? Had something dreadful happened? Job stood,
his face growing paler, his heart sinking with an undefined fear. Then
he caught the words, "Jane--dead--you!"--words that made every nerve
quiver, and tortured him till he sank on his knees and begged to know
the worst.

Oh, the awful story! It burned into the depths of his soul. Now it
seemed like a dream, now dreadful reality. Jane was dead. Somebody had
found her lifeless and still on the rocks below the cliff just around
from Inspiration Point, and Bess had come home riderless. All the
country was wild with excitement. Everybody was searching for him. He
had done it, they said. Tom Reed had seen him go away with her, and
knew there was a quarrel on hand. Dan was telling that Jane had
promised to marry him, and that Job had followed her to the valley to
make her break the engagement or kill her. All the evidence was
against Job. They had buried her from the old church, buried her in
the cemetery on the hill, outside of whose gate his father lay. Yes,
Jane was dead!

Job listened and listened--all else fell unheeded on his ear. Jane was
dead, his Jane, and lay beneath the pines far down the Gold City road!
It was all he heard--it was all he knew. He did not stop to explain;
he heard Bess neigh again, and rushed out into the shadowy night, and
mounted her with only a bridle. He heeded not the old man's cries. His
brain was on fire, his soul in agony. Only one thing he knew--Jane was
dead and he must go to her; go as fast as Bess could fly down that
road which many a dark night she had traveled.

Men standing on the steps of the Miners' Home that evening said a dark
ghost went by like a flash--it was too swift for a flesh-and-blood
horse and rider--and they crept in by the bar and drank to quiet their
fears.

He found it at last. The fresh earth, the uplifted pine cross with the
one word "Jane" on it, told the story. He left Bess to roam among the
white stones and the grass, flung himself across that mound, half hid
by withered flowers, and lay as if dead--dead as she who slept
beneath. At last the sobs came; the tears mingled with the flowers;
the heart of manhood was bleeding. Jane was dead! How had it happened?
Who had done this awful thing? God or man, it mattered little to him.
The dreadful fact that burned itself deeper and deeper into his soul
was--Jane was dead!

Oh, that awful night! The stars forgot to shine; the trees moaned over
his head; the lightnings played on yonder mountains. The thunders
rolled, and he heeded them not; the rain-drops pattered now and then
on the branches above, but he never knew it.

Gethsemane! Once it had seemed a strange, far-away place where the
heart broke and the cup was drunk to its bitter dregs. Job had
wondered what it meant. He knew now. It was here on the slopes of the
Sierras. These pines were the gnarled olive trees, this was the garden
of grief. Gethsemane--it had come into the life of Job Malden.

At length the first great storm of grief had spent itself, and he sat
alone in the silence broken only by the far-off mutter of thunder; sat
alone with his dead and his thoughts. Again, as on far Glacier Point,
memory came and turned the pages of a lifetime. He was back in the old
boyhood days, laughing at her dusty, tanned feet--he would kneel to
kiss them now, if he could; again he was climbing Sugar Pine trail
with her; he was following her and Dan out on that bitter winter
night, maddened with jealousy and drink. Still the pages turned. He
was kneeling by her side at the Communion table, and a voice said, "As
oft as ye drink of this cup"--he was drinking of it now--the cup the
Master drank in the garden's gloom. Then the sobs overcame him. Again
he was still. The storm had spent its fury, the moon was struggling
through the rifted clouds. He remembered Glacier Point and that
immortal night, and he felt as if she was here and God was here, and
he knelt and prayed, "Thy will, not mine, be done," and the angels of
peace and rest came and ministered unto him.

From sheer exhaustion he finally slept. It was but the passing of a
moment, and he was awake again. There in the moonlight he read,
"Jane." Could he bear it? He could see her now saying good-by. Oh, it
was forever, forever! Then, like a flash it came--forever? No; only a
little span of life, and, at the gates of pearl, he would see her
waiting to welcome him. She was there now, up where the stars were
shining and the moon had parted the clouds. Her frail body was here
perhaps--but Jane, his Jane, who that night at Glacier Point had said
she loved him--she was there. He would be brave; he would be true to
God; he would lean on the Master's arm. Jesus was left--he was with
him here in the lonely graveyard, and Jane was his still for all
eternity.

The young man looked up from the dark earth to the clear sky, and
prayed a prayer of hope and trust and submission. Near the hour of
dawn he walked out to the gate where Bess stood waiting. He mounted
her--dear Bess! who alone knew the story of the awful tragedy. He
patted her neck; he whispered his sorrow in her ear. And then a
strange, wild thought came to him. He would not go back--he would go
away to the great, outside world, never to see the mountains again.
How could he ever climb Sugar Pine Hill, or go past the old
school-house, or enter the old church? He would go where no gleam from
sun-kissed El Capitan could reach his eye, where no associations that
would remind of a life forever past could haunt his soul.

Then he remembered something--it seemed like a nightmare. They had
said he did it--how, when, why, he knew not. If he went away they
would think he was afraid to face them, they would believe him guilty,
and the old man would be broken-hearted. Job had forgotten him--he had
forgotten all but his awful sorrow. What of it? Go anyway, his heart
said. Go away from this world that has been full of trial after trial
for you. No matter what men think. God knows--God can take care of
the old man.

There on Bess' back Job sat, while the bitter conflict within went on.

It was over at last. He turned Bess' steps toward Pine Mountain and
home. He would face it all--the world's scorn, the old scenes which
seemed each one to pierce anew his heart. He had been down to
Gethsemane; he would climb Calvary.




CHAPTER XXV.

VIA DOLOROSA.


"I tell you he'll come! Don't say that about my boy! It was an
accident--he said so--I heard him! He can explain it all. He saw it!
He'll come!" were the words Job heard Andrew Malden saying as he rode
up to Pine Tree Ranch in the dim light of early morning. The sheriff
and his deputy had come for Job; and, maddened to find him gone, were
cursing the old man and the one they sought.

Andrew Malden, quivering with excitement, tortured by a thousand
fears, wondering if he would come, was defending as best he could the
young man whom he loved, in this awful hour, more than ever before.

Job was close beside them before they saw him. Hitching Bess, he
walked up to the door, saluted the sheriff, and calmly asked:

"Were you looking for me?"

The sight of that pale, manly face for a moment stilled the bluster of
the rough officer of the law, and he almost apologized as he told Job
he was under the painful necessity of taking him to the county jail to
answer to the charge of homicide--the murder of a girl named Jane
Reed. Job winced under the sting of the words. For a moment he felt
like striking the man a blow for mentioning that sacred name; then he
bit his lip, sent up a silent prayer, and said:

"Very well, sir; I will mount my horse and follow you. I know the way
well."

In a flash the burly sheriff whipped the hand-cuffs upon his wrists,
and said:

"Ride! Well, I guess not! You'll play none of your games on me! You
will ride between me and my deputy, Mr. Dean!" And then Job discovered
for the first time that Marshall Dean was eying him with a malicious
grin of satisfaction.

In a moment, seated in the buckboard between the two men, with only
time for a good-by to Bess, a shake of the old man's hand, and never a
moment to explain that the accident he had mentioned had befallen
himself, not Jane, Job Malden rode down over the Pine Tree road,
handcuffed, on his way to the county jail at Gold City.

Past the Miners' Home and the Palace Hotel they drove at last. Bitter
faces glared into the prisoner's, friends of other days met him with
silence, and here and there a voice cried, "Lynch him!" Up past the
old church where he and Jane had gone and come together; up to the
door of the quaint white court house with square tower and green
blinds they drove, and Job passed through the rear door, and into the
narrow, dark dungeon, with only, high up, a little iron-barred window
to let in light and air--a prisoner of Grizzly county, to answer for
the killing of Jane Reed.

Only when he heard the sound of the bolt in the door, heard the crowd
outside cheering the sheriff for his bravery in capturing the outlaw,
and, seated on the narrow cot, looked around the cheerless cell with
no other furniture, did a sense of what it all meant rush over him.
Then the hot tears came, his head sank between his hands, and he felt
that he had taken the first step up Calvary. Like a far-off murmur
there came to him the words he had said in his heart on that long-ago
Communion Sunday:

    "Where He leads me I will follow,
    I'll go with Him all the way."

All the way? Ah, he was beginning to know what that meant! Then there
came that other verse--how it soothed his troubled heart!

    "He will give me grace and glory,
    And go with me all the way."

Just then the sun stole in at the little cell window, and the
perpendicular and horizontal bars made the shadow of a cross on the
floor, all surrounded by a flood of light. A great peace came into Job
Malden's heart, as the Master whispered, "I will never leave thee nor
forsake thee."

       *       *       *       *       *

All Gold City was stirred to its depths. Nothing had happened in forty
years to so move the hearts of men. Business was forgotten, groups of
men met and talked long on the street corners, the mining camp was
deserted. There was but one theme--the tragedy of Inspiration Point.
Up at the Yellow Jacket a great shadow rested over office, church and
the miners' shanties. On the lowest levels of the mines, grimy men
looked into each other's faces and talked in an undertone of the awful
fear which they would not have the rocks and the secret places of the
earth know; that "the parson" was in a murderer's cell, and the storm
clouds were gathering fast about him, and the worst was, he was
guilty--it must be so!

The superintendent drove his team on a run to the court house, and
offered any amount of bail. This was refused, and he was denied even a
look at Job. Up at the ranch, Andrew Malden neither ate nor slept. A
terrible nightmare hung over him. His boy was innocent, of course he
was. But oh, it was awful! The saloons were crowded, and a furtive
chuckle passed around the bars. He was caged now, the one they hated,
and the evil element were in high glee. O'Donnell and Dan Dean, Col.
Dick and the sheriff, were the center of crowds who hung on their
words, as they told the story of the crime over and over with a new
force and new aspect that showed the utter hypocrisy, treachery and
sin of Job.

The church was crowded. The preacher could not believe Job guilty, but
he dared not say so. Tom Reed, wild with grief, pleaded with men to
break open the jail and let him slay the murderer, slay him and avenge
his Jane--his black-eyed, great-hearted Jane. The city reporters were
busy, and the papers glowed with accounts and photographs of "the
awful wretch who was safely held behind the bars of the Gold City
jail." So the storm surged to and fro, so the days passed, to that
dark ninth of August when the trial was to begin.

Of all the throng of men in the mountains in those days, he alone who
sat in the silence of a dungeon in the old court house, was unmoved
and at peace. Through the long hours he sat recalling memories of past
years, living again the scenes of yesterday, which seemed to belong to
another world and another life now gone forever. From his pocket he
drew again and again the little Testament still fragrant with a
mother's dying kiss, and felt himself as much a homeless, motherless
boy as upon that long-ago night when he first saw Gold City and fell
asleep on the "Palace" doorsteps. He read it over and over. It was of
Gethsemane, the Last Supper and Calvary he read most. He knew now what
they meant. Then he turned to the words, "What shall separate us from
the love of God?" and the consciousness that God was left, that Jesus
was his, was like a mighty arm bearing him up.

They asked him for his defense. He said he had none, except the fact
that he knew nothing about the deed. They scorned that, and asked whom
he wished for a lawyer. He had no choice--cared for none. The judge
sent him a young infidel attorney, the sheriff refused him the
privilege of seeing anyone, the iron gate was double-barred, and
closer and closer the web of evidence was drawn about him ready for
the day of the trial.

He asked for Andrew Malden, but was refused. He begged them to send
for Indian Bill; they made a pretense of doing so, but the trapper was
far from human reach, far up in the wilderness beyond El Capitan. All
Job could do was to pray and wait, little caring what the outcome
might be, little caring what might be the verdict of the world of Gold
City; knowing only two things--that Jane was dead and life could never
be the same to him; and that the God who looked down in tender
compassion on his child shut in between those dark stone walls, knew
all about it. Job had read how one like unto an angel walked in the
furnace of old with God's saints; he felt, now, that the Christ came
and sat by his side in those lonely prison hours.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Monday, the ninth of August. The sun's rays beat down on the
dusty streets of Gold City and glared from the white walls of the
court house. At ten o'clock the trial would commence--the great trial
of "The State vs. Job Teale Malden." The streets were thronged with
vehicles; it was like one of the old-time Sunday picnics, only saint
as well as sinner was here. The Yellow Jacket had closed down by
common consent of all, and hundreds of workingmen were pouring into
town in stages and buckboards, on horseback and on foot. The old court
house was packed to its utmost capacity; the gallery and stairs were
one mass of writhing humanity. Outside, they stood like a great
encampment, stretching away, filling the whole square. Still they came
from Mormon Bar and Wawona--the greatest throng in the history of
Grizzly county; men, women, and children in arms--all to see Job
Malden tried for his life.

Through this crowd, Andrew Malden, leaning on his cane, passed in at
the great door by Tony's side. The crowd was silent as he passed. Some
muttered under their breath; some lifted their hats. That worn, gaunt
face startled them all. It was through this same crowd that Tom Reed,
with darkened brow, and Dan Dean, limping on his crutches, passed in
together.

The clock in the tower struck ten. Job in his cell heard it above the
din of innumerable feet passing over his head; heard it and knelt in
an earnest prayer for grace to bear whatever might come; to suffer and
be still as his Master did of old. He had gone all over it again and
again; they knew his story of the walk down the cañon trail with
Indian Bill, but even the lawyer doubted it. If they knew of Glacier
Point and the betrothal, they might believe him. Should he tell it?
All night he had paced the cell wondering if he ought--if he could. As
he knelt in that hour, he resolved that, though it would save his
life, no human ear should ever hear that sacred secret. That hour on
Glacier Point should be unveiled to no human eye, but remain locked in
the chambers of his soul, known only to God and her who waited yonder
for his coming.

It was near noon when the judge ascended the bench. The hubbub of
voices ceased, the case was called, the rear door opened, and, led in
by the sheriff, handcuffed and guarded, with calm, white face, yet
never faltering in step or look, Job Malden walked across the floor to
the prisoner's seat, while the crowd gazed in curiosity, that soon
changed to awe and reverence, at that grave face, so deeply marked
with scars of grief.

It was a strange scene that met Job's gaze. All the familiar faces
were there--Aunty Perkins and Tim's father; Dean and O'Donnell glaring
at him; poor old Andrew Malden leaning on his cane; Tony and Hans and
Tom Reed and--oh, no! Jane was not there, but gone forever from Gold
City and its strange, hard life. A tear stole down the prisoner's
cheek--he wiped it away. His enemies saw it and winked. Tim's father
saw it and moaned aloud. The clock struck twelve in the high tower,
and proceedings began.

It was two days before the trial was well under way. The quibbling of
the lawyers, the choosing of a jury, the hearing of the witnesses who
had found the wounded, silent form of Jane Reed on the rocks beneath
the famous Point, filled the hours. Morning after morning, the scenes
of that first day were repeated in the court room; the great crowds,
the intense excitement, the friends and enemies intently listening to
every word and watching every movement of the prisoner. And calm and
still, with never a sign of fear or shame on his face, Job Malden sat
in that court room hour after hour, and One unseen stood at his side.

On the third day the prosecution began to weave its web of
circumstantial evidence about Job. How shrewd it was! How carefully
each suspicious incident was told and retold! How meanly everything
bad in his life was emphasized, everything good forgotten! They
brought the tales of long-ago years when he was a mere boy. They
proved that the passionate blood of a gambler was in his veins; that
his father before him had shot a companion. The story of the
horse-race and escapades of the reckless days of old were rehearsed by
hosts of witnesses. It was proved, by an intricate line of
cross-questions, that once before, on a bitter winter's night, young
Malden had pursued this girl and Dan Dean with the avowed intention of
harming them. The hot blood came to Job's face--he well remembered
that night. Then he seemed to hear the distant voice of Indian Bill
saying by the roaring Merced, "Bill forgive Mono Indian;" and, sitting
there with this tale pouring into the ears of the throng who looked
more and more askance at him, Job said deep in his soul, "Forgive us
our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Father, I
forgive, I forgive!"

Closer and closer they drew the web. They made Andrew Malden--poor old
man!--confess that he had heard Job say, "It was an accident," then
showed that he had denied knowing aught of Jane's death until he
reached home. Then Tom Reed took the stand. He testified that all
Jane's preference was for Dan; that she went to him when he and Job
were both so ill; that she wrote to Dan and never wrote to Job. The
old man fairly shook with rage as on the witness-stand he took every
chance to denounce the "hypocrite and 'ristocrat." Minutely he
pictured Job's coming to the valley, the heated arguments he was sure
the two had had, and how upon that awful day when Jane left him
forever, she had walked away by the side of Job Malden.

Daniel Dean was the next witness. The crowd hung breathless on his
words. Stumping up on his crutches, Dan took the chance of a lifetime
to vent his hatred of Job. Keen, shrewd, too wise to speak out
plainly, but wise enough to know the blighting influence of
suggestion, Dan talked, insinuated and lied till the nails were driven
one by one into poor Job's heart and the pain was almost more than he
could bear. Insidiously, indirectly, he gave them all to understand
that Jane Reed loved him and again and again by her actions had shown
preference for himself. Then down the aisle he passed, while the crowd
looked at him in pity, and Job felt as if he must rise and tell of the
night at Glacier Point, must vindicate the memory of Jane Reed. But
no! God knew all. Some things are too sacred to tell to any ear but
his. He must suffer and be still.

When Job went back to his lonely cell that night a boy was whistling
on the street, "I'll go with Him all the way," and Job Malden took up
the words and said them with a meaning he had never known before.




CHAPTER XXVI.

"CALVARY."


On the fourth day the court called for the defense. Curiosity reached
its culmination. Men fought for a chance to get within hearing
distance. Dan and his comrades sat with an indolent air of
satisfaction. Aunty Perkins crowded close to the front. Through the
door and up to the very railing which enclosed the active
participants, Andrew Malden and Tony made their way. There were only
four possible points for the defense. First, it might prove Job's
changed character; second, that it was Job, not Dan, to whom Jane Reed
was betrothed; third, that Job was far away in the Merced Cañon with
Indian Bill at the time of the death; fourth, to show by what cause
death came to the fated girl.

The last, the defense could not prove; for the third, they had no
evidence but the prisoner's own word, and that the court would not
accept; the second, not even the lawyer or Andrew Malden knew, and no
power on earth could make Job Malden tell it; there was no defense to
make except to show the character of Job and plead the fact that
circumstantial evidence was not proof of guilt.

He did his best, that bungling young attorney. He tried to take
advantage of technicalities, but Job utterly forbade that. If
righteousness and God could not clear him, nothing else could. The
defense was lame, but it proved that some people believed in Job and
loved him. Tim's father told, between his tears, the story of "Tim's
praist." Aunty Perkins and the preacher spoke ringing words for him.
From the Yellow Jacket men came and defended his noble life. But it
all went for naught with that jury. It was facts, not sentiment, they
wanted. All this might be true, but if Job Malden had done the awful
deed which the evidence went to show, then these things only made his
crime the blacker.

The defense finished at noon, and the lawyers began their pleas at one
o'clock. They hardly needed to speak--Grizzly county had tried the
case and the verdict was in. Yet they spoke. How eloquently the
prosecuting attorney showed the influence of heredity--that the evil
in the father would show itself some day in the boy! How he pictured
the temporary religious change in Job's life, and then his relapse as
the old fever came back into his blood! He had relapsed before, they
all knew. He did not doubt his temporary goodness; but love is
stronger than fear and hatred than integrity, and meeting Jane in the
valley had roused all the old passion. Out on the cliff they had
walked, they had quarreled, all the old fire of his father had come
back--perhaps the boy was not to blame--and, standing there alone with
the girl who would not promise to be his wife, in his rage he had
struck her, and over the cliff she had gone, down, down, on the cruel
rocks, to her death, and he had fled over the mountains till, goaded
by conscience, haunted by awful guilt, he had come home and given
himself up.

The crowd shuddered as he spoke. Tom Reed fainted, Andrew Malden grew
deathly white and raised his wan hand in protest, but still the
speaker kept on. Job listened as if it were of another he spoke. He
could see it all--how awful it was!--and it was Jane and he had done
it! He almost believed he had; that man who stood there, carrying the
whole throng with him, made it so clear. The voice ceased. Then Job
roused himself. The consciousness that it was all false, terribly
false, came over him, and he leaned hard on God.

The attorney for the defense said but a word. For a moment it thrilled
the multitude. It was a strange speech. This is what he said: "Your
honor and gentlemen of the jury, the only defense I have is the
character of the young man. I can say nothing more than you have heard
to show how far beneath him is such a crime as this. I know you doubt
his word, I know you are against him; but, before these people who
know me as an infidel--before God who looks down and knows the hearts
of men--I want to say that I believe in Job Malden. What I have seen
of him in these awful days has changed my whole life. Henceforth I
believe in God."

It was over. The judge was charging the jury, "Bring in a verdict
consistent with the facts, gentlemen; the facts, not sentiment." The
sun was setting. The jury retired for the night; they would bring in a
verdict in the morning.

But the verdict was in. Even Andrew Malden groaned as he leaned on
Tony's arm, "Oh, Tony! Tony! How could he have done it!" As Job turned
to go back to his cell, he looked over that great crowd for one face
that trusted him, but on each seemed written, "Guilty!" He felt as if
the whole world had turned from him and the years had gone for naught.
There was no voice to whisper a loving word. "Forsaken! forsaken!" He
said it over and over. His head was hot, his pulse was feverish. He
longed for the touch of his mother's hand; he was hungry for the sound
of Jane's voice; he longed to lay his head on Andrew Malden's knee;
but he was alone--Calvary was here. The crucifixion hour had come.

At midnight he awoke. A strong arm seemed to hold him, a voice to say,
"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; when thou
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." It was the
Christ. There alone on the summit of the mount of the cross, amid the
bitterness of the world, pierced to the heart, crucified in soul, Job
Malden stood with his Master.




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE VERDICT.


It was Friday morning. The last day of the trial had come. The hot sun
beat down on hundreds pressing their way towards the old court house,
too excited to be weary. Never had Gold City known such a day. The
court room was crowded two hours before the judge came to the bench. A
profound silence filled the place. When Job entered one could have
felt the stillness. All knew the verdict--all dreaded to hear it. Dan
Dean shrank down behind the post when the jury filed in. Job sat with
a far-away look in his eyes. Men, gazing at him, were reminded of
pictures of the old saints.

The preliminaries were over, and the foreman of the jury rose to give
the verdict. Men held their breath. Women grew pale and trembled. In a
clear voice he said it: "Guilty!" For a moment the hush lasted; then
Andrew Malden fainted, Tim's father cried, "My God! My God!" a storm
of tears swept over the throng, and Job sat motionless, while a look
of great peace came into his face and in his soul he murmured, "It is
finished!"

But the judge was speaking. He was denying the motion for a new trial;
he was asking if the prisoner had aught to say why sentence should not
be pronounced against him, when a voice that startled all rang through
the great room:

"White man, hear! Bill talk!"

There he stood--from whence he came no one knew--his old gray blanket
wrapped about him, his long black hair falling in a mass over his
shoulders, the blue overalls still hanging about his great brown feet.
With hand outstretched, he stood for a moment in silence, while judge
and jury and throng were at his command.

Then he spoke; brief, to the point, fiery, strong. The crowd was
spellbound. He carried bench and jury and all with him. He told of the
day in Merced Cañon; of the figure on the distant cliff; of the
earthquake and Job's fall; how he had seen what he dared not tell the
boy--the cliff give way, a white thing go down, down, out of sight.
Told of Job's many hours in his tepee, and of how the boy had brought
him to the Great Spirit, who took the hate all out of his heart. On he
talked, till Job's every statement was corroborated, till a revulsion
of feeling swept over the multitude, till they saw it all vividly:
that it was the earthquake--it was God, not man, who had called Jane
Reed from this world; that the prisoner was as innocent as the baby
yonder prattling in its mother's arms.

Dan slunk out of the door, Tom Reed sat in silent awe, Tim's father
was in tears, Tony shouted, "Bress de Lawd!" And only Job said never a
word, as the judge, disregarding all precedent, dismissed the case.
The great trial of "The State vs. Job Malden" was ended.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN JANUARY AND MAY TIME.


The leaves on the mountain maples turned early that fall. The touch of
bitter frost brought forth their rarest colors. The snowflakes
fluttered down before November was past; fluttered down and softly
covered the furrows and brown earth with a mantle of white.

So the days of that autumn came to Job Malden. The beauty begotten of
pain crept into his face. The mantle of silence and peace hid deep the
scars of grief. He never talked of the past--no man ever dared broach
it. The children at their play in the twilight stopped and huddled
close as they saw a dark form climb the graveyard hill, and wondered
who it could be. Yet he did not live apart from the world. Never had
Gold City seen more of him; never did children love a playmate so much
as he who took them all into his heart. Yet he was not of them--all
felt it, all saw it. He was with them, not of them. Up higher in soul
he had climbed than the world of Gold City could go. He came down to
them often, and unconsciously they poured their sorrows at his feet,
and he comforted them; but when he went back into the secret holy
place of his soul, no man dared follow.

Up at the old ranch, the gray-haired, feeble owner sat by the fire
watching the crackling logs and the flames; sat and thought of the
years that were gone. Visions of childhood mingled with visions of
heaven; the murmur of voices long silent with the words, as Job read
them aloud: "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare
a place for you." Tony still sang at his chores, Hans was still at the
barn, Bess still neighed in the stable, Shot still barked at the door.
But the old home could never be quite the same to the brave, manly
fellow who strode in and out across its threshold.

It was New Year's Eve. Job sat by the old stone fireplace. The
household had gone to rest. The clock was ticking away the moments of
the dying year. Outside, the world was still and white. With head in
his hands, Job waited for the year to end.

He was ten years older than when it had begun. He was still a boy then
in heart and years; now he was well on in manhood. Yosemite, Glacier
Point, Gethsemane, Calvary, Jane Reed's grave, were in that year. He
longed to hear its death-knell. Yet that year--how much it had meant
to his soul! The sanctifying influence of sorrow had softened and
purified his life. The abiding Christ was with him; he lived, and yet
not he--it was Christ living in him.

He knelt and thanked Him for it all--heights of glory, depths of
tribulation; thanked Him for whatsoever Infinite Love had given in the
days of that dark, dark year now ending. The clock gave a warning
tick--it was going; a moment, and it would be gone forever. Into his
heart came a great purpose--the purpose to leave the past with the
past, and in the new year go out to a new life--a life of love for all
the world, of service for all hearts. Over his soul came a great joy.

The clock struck twelve. Somebody down the hill fired a gun, the dogs
barked a welcome--the new year had come. The school-house bell was
ringing, and to Job it seemed to say:

    "Ring out the old, ring in the new,
    Ring in the Christ that is to be."

The young man rose from his knees. He went and opened the door. The
white world flooded with silvery light lay before him. The past was
gone. He stood with his face to the future, to the years unscarred
and waiting. Into them he would go to live for others. He closed the
doors, brushed back the embers, and crept softly up to his room,
singing in a low voice the first song for many months:

    "Oh, the good we all may do,
    While the days are going by."

All day the drums had been beating. All day the tramp of martial feet
had been heard along the Gold City streets. The soldiers from Camp
Sheridan had marched in line with the local militia, and a few
trembling veterans who knew more of real war than either. "Old Glory"
on the court house had been at half-mast, the children had scattered
flowers on a few flag-marked graves, while faltering voices of age
read the Grand Army Ritual. The public exercises in the town square
were over.

The sun had set on Decoration Day when Job rode Bess up once more to
the old graveyard where Jane lay. Not often did he come here now--he
felt that she was up among the stars; it was only the shroud of clay
that lay under the sod--yet on this day when love scatters garlands
over its dead, he had come to place a wreath of wild-flowers on her
grave.

He thought of that night when he had first visited this spot. How far
in the past it seemed! He could never forget it, but he could think of
it now in quiet of soul, and feel, "He doeth all things well."
Reverently he laid the wreath on the grave, knelt in silent prayer,
and tarried a moment with bowed head. Memories sweet and tender,
memories sad and bitter, came back to him.

Just then he heard a noise, a foot-fall opposite, and looked up to see
a tall form supported by a crutch standing with bowed head.

"Why, Dan!" Job said, startled for a moment.

"Job!" answered a trembling voice.

And there they stood, those two men whose lives met in the one under
the sod; stood and looked in silence.

At last Dan spoke. But how different his voice sounded! All the
scornfulness had gone out of it.

"Job," he said, "Job, I knew you were here. Many a night I have seen
you come, have watched you kneeling here, and hated you for it--yet
loved you for it. I knew you would come again to-night. I came to
stand beneath that old pine yonder, and watched you lay the wreath on
the grave. I could stand it no longer. I have come, Job--I have
come--" and Dan, yes, Dan Dean, faltered!--"come to be forgiven. For
years I have dogged your footsteps, hated you, persecuted you, lain in
wait to ruin you. For this alone I have lived. God only knows--you
don't--how bad I have been. But, Job, you are too much for me. The
more I harm you, the nobler you grow. I have hated religion, but
to-night I would give all I ever hope to own to have a little like
yours. If religion can do for a fellow what it has for you, there is
nothing in the world like it."

A little nearer he came, as Job, hardly believing his ears, listened.

"Job," he cried, "I don't deserve it, God knows! I have wronged you
beyond all hope of mercy. But I must be forgiven, or I must die. You
must forgive me. I cannot live another day with this awful feeling in
my heart. I cannot sleep--I cannot work. I don't care whether I die or
not, but I cannot go into eternity without knowing that you forgive
me!"

At last the tears came, and Dan sank, crutch in hand, beside Jane's
grave.

Job could not speak. For a moment, only the sound of a strong man's
sobs and the hoot of an owl filled the air, then a passionate cry
burst from Dan's lips:

"Tell me, Job, tell me, is it possible for you to forgive?"

For a moment Job faltered. He could see Trapper Bill pace the tepee
and say, "Bill forgive Mono Indian;" he could hear the Master saying,
"After this manner pray ye, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us;" and, kneeling and putting his arm
about the quivering form, he whispered:

"Dan, I forgive!"

Long hours they stayed there, praying and talking, till Dan, grown
quiet as a child, looked up with a strange, new expression, and said:

"You forgive and God forgives! Oh, Job, this is more than I ever hoped
for! I can hardly stand it!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Children's Day when Daniel Dean was received into the Gold City
church. No one knew what was coming. Job rode down from the ranch with
the secret hid in his heart. It was a lovely June Sunday. The roses
were blossoming over the cottages, and the birds sang as if wild with
joy. The mountains were covered with green, the valleys were robed in
flowers, and golden plains stretched below.

Old friends were greeting each other, and familiar forms passing in at
the church door, as Job led Andy Malden, leaning on his cane, to the
family pew. The church was a bower of flowers, the songs of birds rang
out from gayly bedecked cages, and the patter of children's feet was
heard in the aisle.

It was a beautiful service. Music of voice and organ filled the air,
wee tots tripped up to the platform and down again, saying in
frightened voices little "pieces" that made mothers proud and big men
listen. The pastor brought forth a number of candles, large and
small, wax and common tallow, and put them on the pulpit, where he lit
them one by one, showing how one, lit by the flame of the largest,
could pass along and light the others; how one life lit by the fire of
Jesus' love could light all the hearts around it. And from smallest
bright-eyed boy to gray-haired Andrew Malden, all knew what he meant
by the transforming power of a transformed life. It was then that song
and service had its living illustration.

[Illustration: From Glacier Point, Yosemite.]

It was just as the preacher finished his sermon and asked if any had
children to be baptized, that Job arose and said there was one present
who had come as a little child to Christ, and who wished to come as a
little child into the church, and he would present him for baptism if
he might.

The preacher gave willing consent, and the wondering congregation
waited. Job rose and passed to the rear. Every head was turned. Then
he came back, and on his arm, neatly dressed in a plain black suit,
came poor, crippled Dan Dean.

The people who saw that scene can never agree on just what happened
then. A resurrection from the dead could scarcely have surprised them
more. It is said that they rose en masse and stood in silence as the
pair passed down the aisle. Then someone started up, "There's a
wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea," and the whole
church rang.

Some say that Dan told of his conversion and his faith in Jesus; some,
that Job told it; some, the preacher. The preacher's tears, it is
said, mingled with the baptismal waters, and the noonday sun kissed
them into gold, on that famous Sunday when Daniel Dean was baptized
and received as a little child into the Gold City church.




CHAPTER XXIX.

SUNSET.


One evening soon after that memorable Sunday, Job reached home rather
late. Putting Bess in the stall, he said a tender good-night, crossed
the square to the gate, and went up to the house to find it strangely
still. He pushed the door ajar and saw the old man leaning on his cane
in his arm-chair. His white locks were gilded by the setting sun. His
spectacles lay across the open Bible on the chair at his side. Job
spoke, but there was no answer. Stepping over to see if the old man
was asleep, he found he was indeed sleeping--the sleep that knows no
waking.

Just at sunset, as the long summer day was dying, reading that
precious Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the weary
traveler on life's long journey had finished his course and gone to
the rest that remaineth for the children of God. Beside him, he had
laid the Book; he would need it no more--he had gone to see the Savior
"face to face." He had taken off his spectacles--the eyes that had
needed them here would not need them in that world to which he had
gone. On his staff he leaned, In the old farmhouse, the home of many
years, and gently as a little child falls asleep in its mother's arms,
he had leaned on God and gone to the better Home.

A feeling of utter loneliness came over Job. The last strong tie was
broken. That night he walked over the old place in the dim light, and
felt that heaven was coming to be more like home than earth.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Waal, the old man's gone," Marshall Dean said, as he drew his chair
back from the table. "Mighty long wait we've had, Sally, but now we'll
get ready to move."

"Move!" cried his wife, "move! Marshall Dean, where is your common
sense? Don't you know the whole thing will go to that man that's no
kith nor kin of his, while we poor relations has to sit and starve!"

"Mother," said a voice, "I think Job Malden has a better right to the
place than we. He's been a better relation to the old man than all the
Deans together, if I do say it." It was Dan who spoke.

"Yes, that's the way! Bring up a son, and hear him talk back to his
mother!--that's the way it goes! Ever since ye got religion down there
at that gal's grave, ye've been a regular crank!"

The hot words stung, but Dan remained silent.

"I don't care, ma," said little Tom, "I think Job's nice, and if he's
boss I'm going up there every day."

"Yes, and he'll kick ye out, or do the way he did with Dan at the
Yellow Jacket--set a parcel of soldiers on to ye, just as if ye was a
dog!" sharply retorted Mrs. Dean.

Dan could keep silent no longer. "Mother, what right have you to talk
that way? I deserved all I got at the Yellow Jacket. And I shall never
forget that when my leg was hurt and the surgeon took it off, Job came
in and nursed me. No better man ever walked the earth than Job
Malden, and not one of the Dean family is worth mentioning in the
same breath."

       *       *       *       *       *

The mother cut her bread in frowning silence, the father took his hat
and left the room, while little Ross said:

"Job brought me a lot of the prettiest flowers once when I was sick! I
wish he owned all the flowers, he's so good to me!"

Just then Baby Jim climbed into his mother's lap and said, "What's
'dead,' mamma? Where's Uncle Andy gone? Is you goin' there?" And the
peevish, selfish woman took the child in her arms and went out on the
sunny porch, wondering if indeed she was ever going there; whether
this something which, after all, she knew had so changed Dan for the
better, was for her.

Down at Squire Perkins' that night, a Chinese woman, kneeling by her
kitchen chair, prayed that riches might not conquer Job Malden, who by
the grace of God had stood so many of life's tests.

On the streets of Gold City they debated over the estate, wondering if
Andrew Malden had left anything for public charity, and whether the
new lord of Pine Tree Mountain would rebuild the mill and open the
Cove Mine. Pioneers of the hills met each other by the way and talked
of how fast changes were coming in Grizzly county--Yankee Sam gone,
Father Reynolds gone, and now Andy Malden. They shook their heads and
wondered what would become of things, with none but the youngsters
left.

Up at the ranch, Tony crept softly across the floor and, himself
unseen, looked in where Job sat by the still form of "old Marse."

It was over at last. Under the pines, close by his own boy and Jane,
they laid him. It was a strange funeral. Tony, Hans, Tim's father and
Sing bore the casket. A great throng was there. The man whom Grizzly
county had once hated was buried amid its tears. Job stood with bared
head as the preacher said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and turned
quickly away, feeling that the old days were gone forever.

It seemed very strange that night to hear Tony say, "Marse Malden,
what's de work yo' hab for me?" He walked through the old house and
then went out again. The soul of the place was gone.

Job wondered what the outside world looked like; what God had in store
for him. He longed to leave the dead past behind him, and be out in
the world of action and mighty purpose. But he was in the memory-world
still; and as he slept that night, there came the friends of other
days--his blue-eyed mother, Yankee Sam, black-eyed Jane, wan-faced
Tim, the old man; across his dreams they came and went.

Last of all One came, the seamless robe enfolding Him, the dust
covering His scarred feet, the print of thorns on His brow, and He
whispered:

"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."




CHAPTER XXX.

"AUF WIEDERSEHEN."


It was two days after the funeral. Sing had set things to rights in
the old parlor; Tony brought in a bunch of flowers; and Job, leaving
Bess saddled by the fence, came in and went up to his little room.
They were coming to hear the will read. They would be here soon, the
lawyer and the relatives and the preacher--for it was announced that
the old man had left a snug sum to the church. Sing and Tony and Hans,
arrayed in their best, waited for those who were coming.

At last they came--the preacher on horseback, in his long coat;
Marshall Dean and his wife, in their best attire, followed by the nine
young Deans of all ages. And back of all was Dan, in his neat black
suit, looking paler and more frail than ever. Into the prim little
parlor they all filed, and sat down awkwardly in a line around the
room. The preacher remarked upon the weather, Mr. Dean said it was an
uncommon warm summer, Mrs. Dean sent Tommy to get her a newspaper to
use as a fan.

Just then a horse and cart drove up, and all looked out. It was Aunty
Perkins. Why she had come, she knew not, except that Job had sent for
her. She trotted in, and, with a little curtsey, said, "How do? Hot in
sun. All well?" Next came Tim's father, in a new brown suit and a red
tie that matched his hair. Last of all, Tom Reed looked in sheepishly,
and seated himself outside the door. All sat in embarrassed silence,
which grew painful as the moments went on. Where was the lawyer, and
where was Job?

Finally they came--the attorney through the gate and up the path at a
brisk pace. Then, dressed in a neat black suit, with black tie and
black hat in hand, and looking for all the world as he had years
before when he came in on the stage, only older grown, Job came down
the stairs and, with a kind welcome, seated himself near the door.

The lawyer adjusted his spectacles and broke the seal of the document
in his hand. Hans and Sing and Tony stood in the open door, a
picturesque group in the afternoon sunlight. The lawyer rose, looked
about, and cleared his throat. The anxious spectators leaned over,
breathless. It had come at last! Only a second between them and some
substantial remembrance from Andrew Malden.

The will was in the usual form, but it was brief. Slowly, almost
haltingly, he read, so that the words fell clearly on each ear. This
is what they heard:

     "In the name of God, Amen. I, Andrew Malden, a native of
     Massachusetts, a resident of Grizzly county, State of
     California, being in clear mind and usual health, do hereby
     make my last will and testament. I hereby bequeath all my
     property, real and personal, those lands and buildings and
     appurtenances thereof situated in the county of Grizzly, all
     bonds and moneys deposited in the Gold City Bank, to Job Teale,
     who for many years has lived under my roof and been a son to
     me. All things that by the grace of God I own, I bequeath to
     him and his heirs and assigns forever.

     (Signed)      ANDREW MALDEN."

A stillness almost oppressive filled the room as the last word fell
from the lawyer's lips, as the name of the last witness was read.

It was what they had expected--what in all justice was right--but not
what they had hoped. All together they rose to go. The preacher was
saying, "Mr. Malden, we hope the Lord will bless these riches to your
good," Dan was looking as if impressed with the extreme justice of
things, when Job arose and motioned them into silence. There he stood
in the center, stood and looked into each face.

"Wait, Mr. Lawyer," he said. "I have a word before you go. Neighbors,
friends, I have something to say. Fifteen years ago, the man whose
last will we have heard to-day carried me, a helpless orphan, across
the threshold of yonder door. From that night until now, I have called
this home. Fifteen years! What changes they have brought! Dan and I
were little boys; now we are men. The joys and sorrows of human life
have come to me in these years. This old home has been dear to me; I
love every nook and corner of it. These well-worn boards are holy
ground. Here Andrew Malden lived; by that lounge he became a changed
man; from that old rocker he went home to God. By yonder gate I first
met her whom you all knew and loved; to this home, torn and crushed by
life's troubles, I have fled like a child at dusk to its mother's
arms, and in these rooms God has comforted and strengthened my heart.
I love you all. Not always have we seen alike; you have not always
loved me; but, some day, we shall know as we are known; some day we
shall see face to face.

"I love these old mountains. I came to them a boy; they have made a
man of me. I have roamed their forests and climbed their cliffs. Every
spot has precious memories. Yes, neighbors, I love the old hills, I
love the old home; but to-night I am going far away from them.
To-night, before the sun sets, I shall leave the old scenes forever.
Here, lawyer, are some papers. Read them when I am gone. This is my
will.

"Parson, you will build a new church with the money, and somewhere in
it remember the ones who are gone. Tony, Hans, Reed, there is
something for all of you. Dan, the old place is yours; keep it till I
come. All I shall take is Bess and my mother's Testament.

"Farewell, Dan. Farewell, neighbors. God bless you, Tony; and, when
you pray, don't forget me;" and, striding across the room, Job Malden
was gone.

By the gate he tarried a moment, put his arms round Shot's shaggy neck
and kissed him, sprang on Bess' back, gave one last look at Pine Tree
Ranch, and was off.

There, in a silent, awed group, they stood in the door-yard and
watched him go through the pasture gate. Across the hills, the sunset
and the twilight fell on forest and fields and hearts.

That night, men say, a dark shadow stole out of the graveyard at
midnight and galloped away. Far below in the Coyote Valley, where the
road to the plains goes down from the hill, some one said that--lying
awake near the window, in the stillness which comes towards
morning--he heard the sound of horse's hoofs going by, and rider and
horse swept on far down the road.

[Illustration: FINIS]




[Illustration: (decoration)]

EPILOGUE.

On Pine Tree mountain the old house still stands, its windows hidden
beneath vines. Back and forth by the barns Tony slowly moves. By the
gate an old dog lies waiting. On the porch a frail cripple sits in the
twilight and looks down the road. But the one they wait for will never
come. Across the years of busy action and world-wide service he treads
the path that leads to "palms of victory, crowns of glory." In the joy
of service he is finding the peace which the world cannot give nor
take away. In self-forgetfulness he is growing daily into His
likeness, until he shall at last awake in His image, satisfied.

[Illustration: (decoration)]




THE TAKING IN OF MARTHA MATILDA.

BY BELLE KELLOGG TOWNE.


She stood at the end of the high bridge and looked over it to where
her father was making his way along the river-bank by a path leading
to the smelter. Then she glanced up another path branching at her feet
from the road crossing the bridge and which climbed the mountain until
it reached a little adobe cottage, then stopped. She seemed undecided,
but the sweet tones of a church bell striking quickly on the clear
April air caused her to turn her face in the direction from whence the
sound came.

It was Martha Matilda, "Graham's girl," who stood thus, with the wind
from the snow-caps blowing down fresh upon her, tossing to and fro the
slim feather in her worn hat, and making its way under the lapels of
her unbuttoned jacket--Martha Matilda Graham, aged ten, with a wistful
face that might have been sweet and dimpled had not care and
loneliness robbed it of its rightful possessions. Further back there
had been a mother who called the child "Mattie." But now there was
only "father," and with him it was straight "Martha Matilda," spoken a
little brusquely, but never unkindly. Oh, yes, up in the cottage,
certain days, was Jerusha, who did the heavy work and then went home
nights; with Jerusha it was plain "Mat." Then there was Miss Mary down
at the school which Martha Matilda had attended at the time when
loving mother-fingers "fixed her up like other girls," and Miss Mary,
when speaking to the child "running wild upon the mountain side,"
always said "dear." But Martha Matilda had dropped out of the
day-school and out of the Sunday-school. Somehow she had grown tired
of trying to keep shoe-strings from breaking, and aprons from being
torn, and if she was just home with Towser, such things did not
matter; as to her going to school, her father did not seem to care.
"Guess there's no hurry 'bout filling so small a head," he would
sometimes say when Jerusha pleaded for school with Martha's eyes
assenting.

So now, Martha Matilda stood listening to the chiming of the Easter
bells and seemed undecided as to her next move.

"I know Miss Mary's lily is there, and it's got five blossoms on this
year; she told father so down at the store. And such a lot of
evergreen as the girls did take in yesterday!" Her face was still
turned in the direction of the church on the outskirts of the scraggly
mountain town, and whose spire pricked through the dark green piñons
surrounding it. "I ain't fixed--I ain't never fixed now." And she
glanced down along her unbuttoned jacket, over the faded delaine
dress, to her shoes tied with strings held together by countless
knots. "It seems awful lonesome to be home on Easter."

She pulled out some brown woolen gloves from the pocket of her jacket,
and drew them on slowly. Her fingers crowded out through numerous
holes, but she pushed them back, pulling the ends of the gloves
further up, and drawing down the sleeves of the jacket in an attempt
to leave as small a part of the woolen gloves in sight as possible.
"Father wouldn't care--he never cares." She buttoned her jacket
hastily, settled her brown hat a little straighter, ran fleetly along
the road leading toward the church, and breathlessly climbed the rude
steps, together with a half-dozen other girls, just as the bell threw
down its last sweet tone.

Some of the girls going up the church steps nodded good-humoredly to
Martha Matilda, but others pushed by too eager to notice. Martha did
not follow the girls far up the aisle of the church, but dropped down
into an empty pew near the door. How spicy and nice it did smell! She
reached up so that she might see the prettily-decorated altar over the
heads of the ones filling the church. Yes, there was Miss Mary's lily
with its five blossoms right on the stand by the pulpit. How beautiful
it looked, showing above the evergreens covering the altar-rail! And
there were Mrs. James' geraniums, a whole row of them--no one but Mrs.
James ever had geraniums worth much. And there were two little spruce
trees, one at each end of the altar-rail, with their cones all on.
Hadn't the girls worked, though! But the boys had helped. Lutty
Williams had told Martha Matilda all about it Saturday evening, going
home from the meat market, and then had awakened the first desire in
Martha to go "just for Easter" to the school she had dropped out of.

Martha drew a long breath and was just falling back into an easier
posture after her extended survey, when a hand touched her shoulder.
"I thought, dear, you would want to see the lilies;" and there was
Miss Mary, as tall and sweet as a lily herself, with a brown straw hat
wreathed with cowslips, and a blue serge dress, neat and
close-fitting. "You can see better up with us;" and she drew the hand
with the brown woolen glove up close under her arm.

"Oh, no, Miss Mary, I can't! I ain't fixed! I can see here." And the
little girl pulled herself back as far as Miss Mary's hold upon her
allowed.

"Nonsense! The idea of your staying down here alone!"

There was such sweet insistence in Miss Mary's voice that Martha stood
on her feet and allowed herself to be drawn out into the aisle. But
though for a few steps she followed with evident reluctance, a latent
dignity caused her to free her hand and walk the remainder of the way
as though of her own accord. A cluster of girls were watching for Miss
Mary's coming in a square pew near the front.

"We've saved a place for you right here in the middle," said the girl
nearest the aisle, as their teacher came to them. And then they
shifted this way and that, so that "the place" was widened to take in
Martha Matilda as well.

"Doesn't the church look nice, now we have it all fixed!" asked one of
the girls, as she nestled up close to Martha, reaching over her to
speak lovingly to the teacher.

How cozy Martha felt, sitting there right in the heart of it all! How
pretty the lilies were, up near! And to think that her mamma had given
the first little bulb to Miss Mary!--Miss Mary had told her so one day
at school.

But as Martha was reveling in the sights over which her eyes roamed,
and feeling the sweet comfort of being nestled close, a girl at the
further end of the pew broke a sturdy bit of rose geranium she held
into two pieces and, reaching over, laid one half on the brown woolen
gloves.

Looking up, Martha met a smile and a nod from the giver. Thus
prompted, a lesson leaf was next laid upon the geranium branch by a
second girl, and a smile from another pair of eyes met Martha's. After
a little whispering and nodding between two girls near the aisle, one
of their open singing books was laid on the lesson leaf. "That's the
opening song; you'll get it after the first verse--you always do," was
whispered, and, with a nod, the giver settled back in her place, and
the one at her side passed her book along so as to make it serve for
two.

Oh, how nice it was! And Martha drew a long breath. Then seeing that
the holes in her gloves showed, she tucked them further under the
singing book. This called to mind the broken shoe-strings, and she
moved her feet back out of sight. But even unmended gloves and untidy
shoes could not mar Martha Matilda's sweet feeling of comfort--poor
little Martha Matilda, longing so to be taken in somewhere, but hardly
knowing where or how!

As it was Easter morning, the service was given to the children, who
had the center of the church reserved for them. The superintendent was
seated by the side of the minister, and it was he who gave out the
opening song. Martha found that after the first verse she could "catch
it" very easily, and this joining in the service made her feel all the
more one of them. The prayer that followed was a different prayer from
any that Martha had ever listened to, so low and sweet and confiding
were the words spoken, like friend talking with friend. The second
song Martha joined in at once, it being one she knew, and so forgetful
of self did she sing that more than one of the girls nodded to her
appreciatively, and even Miss Mary looked down and smiled.

After this, there were songs and recitations by the scholars, some of
them Miss Mary's own class, and in these Martha took great pride.
Later, the older ones from the primary class graduated into the main
room, and after a few words from the superintendent, each was
presented with a diploma tied with blue ribbon, and a red Bible. How
happy the children looked as they went down, not to their old places,
but to seats reserved for them among the main-school scholars!

The services closed by a short sermon to the children from the
minister--at least he called it a sermon, but to Martha it seemed just
a tender little talk from a big brother who loved his little brothers
and sisters so that he could not keep his love from showing, and who
loved the dear Jesus more than he loved them. Martha had never been
talked to like this. She sat forgetful of everything, even the woolen
gloves, and at times the minister turned her way and it seemed as
though he looked straight into her heart. Occasionally he touched the
lilies at his side, showing how one may grow like a lily, expanding to
take in Jesus' love as the lilies do the sunshine.

Martha went home as though treading on air. She held the rather wilted
spray of rose geranium, and the lesson leaf, and with them was one of
Miss Mary's calla lilies, broken off clear down to the ground--"the
loveliest of the whole five," the girls said; and Miss Mary had smiled
so lovingly when giving it! And then the minister had come up and,
laying his hand on Martha's shoulder, had said, "It seems to me this
is the little girl who helped me preach to-day by paying such good
attention." Then Miss Mary spoke her name, and the minister said, "You
must come again, my dear." Oh, it was all like a beautiful dream, only
nicer!

Reaching the little home up where the path terminated, Martha opened
the unlocked door and passed in. The sunshine made a warm mat on the
floor, and the cat was curled contentedly upon it. Martha took a
yellow and red vase down from the clock-shelf and, filling it with
water, put her lily and geranium branch into it, and placed it on the
table covered by a red table cloth, and partly set for dinner. The
effect was not quite as pleasing as she expected, but perhaps the rose
geranium would lose its droopy look after a while.

Before taking off her hat, she opened the dampers of the stove, tilted
the cover above the chicken simmering in its gravy and pulled the
kettle further back, then opened the oven door to find it just right
for the potatoes Jerusha had in waiting. All this done, she removed
her hat and hung her jacket on a nail. As she did so, she caught a
glimpse of herself in the little glass over the bureau. It was not
pleasing to her. How grimy her face looked, compared with the other
girls'! And their dresses had lace around the neck, or broad collars,
or something.

Martha whirled around and, lifting the hand basin from its hook by the
sink, she poured some warm water from the tea-kettle into it, carried
it carefully to the sink, loosened her dress and set about giving her
face and neck and hands a thorough scrubbing. This done, she drew a
long breath. "Guess that fixes that!" she said. Then she took off the
bit of soiled ribbon confining her braids, and taking down a comb from
the comb-case near, dipped it into water and drew it carefully through
her hair, after which she divided it into six strands and, giving each
a little twirl, stood for a moment by the radiating stove. Presto! Six
ropy curls danced up and down as their owner moved to and fro across
the room, and as the sunshine fell over them their beauty lifted the
little girl from out her plain surroundings.

She laughed as, brushing the short hair up around her face, and
dampening it before the glass, little ringlets nodded around the
forehead, modifying its squareness.

"It's 'most too fixed-up to wear that way every day. But Lutty
Williams fusses with a hot iron to get hers so."

Then, a new idea striking her, she opened the bureau drawer and took
out a white apron with sleeves and long strings. It was a trifle
difficult to get on, and still more so to button, but at last this was
done, and the strings made into a very respectable bow at the back.
Smoothing it carefully down in front, Martha was disappointed to see
that it did not reach nearly so far over the brown delaine dress as
she had expected. She took no thought of Jerusha's having let out a
tuck in her dress since the apron was last worn.

Martha's gaze now reached to her shoes. She turned to the clock, and,
taking out a pair of shoe-strings, sat down by the stove and, removing
her shoes, threw the bits of broken strings into the fire and threaded
in the new lacings, tying them snugly. Lutty Williams' shoes were
black as well as her lacings!--again there was a feeling of
disappointment.

But the dinner needed her attention, so she turned to finish setting
the table, which Jerusha had arranged in part, before going home. A
second time a thought seemed to strike her, and now she reached to the
top drawer of the bureau and drew forth a white table-cloth. Carefully
she placed the vase on the window-sill, and, taking off the dishes and
putting them back in the cupboard, removed the red table-cloth, folded
it and placed that, too, in the cupboard. Jerusha did not think much
of white tablecloths, but it was Easter, and Easter, the minister had
said, should show loving touches throughout the home, just as Jesus
left his loving touch through the world.

With great care Martha draped the table with the white linen, and
replaced the lily. How beautiful it looked now in its new
surroundings!--too beautiful for the hacked white dishes Jerusha used.
So a chair was placed in front of the green cupboard, and with
precision in every movement the "sprigged" dishes were gotten down.

"Oh, if only it could be that way all the time!" Martha Matilda
sighed, standing beside her carefully-arranged table with shining
eyes. But the potatoes were brown and puffy, and the hand of the clock
reached to just half-past one. She gave a glance around the room,
grabbed her hat, and was off; it was time for her to meet her father
at the bridge, as she always met him Sundays, when dinner was ready.
No matter how much John Graham might enjoy lolling in the sun by the
smelter door with "the boys," he never forgot the time when the brown
hat was to be met down by the bridge. "A little close," was often said
of John Graham. "A trifle sharp in getting the best of a bargain, but
to be depended upon every time."

Martha saw her father's faded felt hat bobbing up over the further
abutment, and she flew across the bridge. "Oh, I am so glad to see
you!" she said, catching hold of one of his big hands and covering it
with both of her small ones, as she danced along beside him.

"One'd 'most think I'd been to Ingy," said the man in what would have
seemed a gruff voice to some. Then he glanced at the little figure by
his side, and said in just the same every-day tone, out of which he
was seldom drawn, "Might'ly fixed up, seems to me."

"It's Easter, you know, pa. I went to Sunday-school. Miss Mary's lily
was there, and there was lots of evergreen, and the minister said I
helped him preach. And oh, pa, you don't know how the girls did take
me in! They sat up just as close!"

"Take you in! And why shouldn't they?"

"But you know, pa, they fix up so. And--" The little girl stopped,
seeming to feel it somewhat difficult to make her father understand
the situation.

"So it's fine feathers, is it?" And now there was a decided gruffness
in his voice.

But they had reached the door of the cottage, and the cat jumped down
from the chair and brushed against the legs of her master. There was
tea to be made, and the chicken to be dished; but the father did the
latter, after having washed carefully. The potatoes were given the
place of honor and the two sat down to do the meal justice.

"We might have had some eggs, seeing it's Easter," said the man,
passing one of the largest potatoes to the little girl.

"Lutty Williams' mother colored hers. Lutty said I might have one of
them, if I'd come over for it."

"Guess I wouldn't go to Lutty Williams' for no eggs, if I was in your
place!" said the father.

This somewhat dampened the little girl's ardor, and the rest of the
meal was partaken of in silence.

The dishes were cleared away and the red table-cloth replaced. "No use
in Jerusha's being bothered," the wise Martha reasoned, as she
replaced the white linen in the drawer. Then she unbuttoned the big
gingham apron she had put on over the white one, and felt inclined to
send the white apron after the table-cloth. But something kept her
from doing this. "It's Easter anyhow."

Her father had taken the cat on his lap, and in a chair tipped back
against the wall, with a broom splint between his teeth, sat reading
the county paper.

Martha stood on the doorstep looking off to the mountains, and there
was the old wistful look on her face again. The April sun had clouded
in, and so had the bright spirit of the child. She tried to draw to
her the warmth that had been holding her close, but instead there
rested upon her a dreary sense of loneliness. Jerusha wouldn't wash
white aprons every day, even if she fussed to put them on. In the
morning her father would be off to the smelter. The same old life
waited for her. She stood for a long time there in the door. Then her
father reached around and took hold of her.

"What's the matter?" He had heard a sob. And though the little girl
drew back he pulled her to him. "You ain't cryin'? Hoity-toity! A
white apron, and hair all fixed, and the girls taking her right in,
and--crying!"

"But, pa, I can't make it stay. Jerusha won't wash white aprons, and
there ain't enough, anyway--and--it's so lonesome here with just
Jerusha! All the rest of the girls have some one standing close--as
close as that to them." And the little girl clutched at her father's
coat-sleeve to demonstrate the closeness of relationship, while the
sobs came thick and fast.

"Nobody but Jerusha!" The father brought his chair down from the wall,
and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his face. "Nobody
standing close! Where be I standing? What am I going to the smelter
for, putting two days into one, if it ain't standing close?"

The man spoke impetuously, the words tumbling recklessly one over the
other, and the little girl's sobs were tumbling in the same way;
neither seemed inclined to stop the other.

"What'd I stand in front of Simonses show-window last night for,
looking at them posies they've got for Easter, if 'twasn't because I'd
liked to have brought the hull lot home? And why didn't I bring 'em
home? Just so as I could slip more money this month in under the
little bank winder. And what am I slippin' money into the bank for?
Why'd I buy them Jersey cows, and that bit o' mountain park, if
'twasn't because I knowed Jerusha was the best butter-maker in town,
and butter meant money, and money meant an easy time for you by and
by? Standin' close!"

The man's voice broke. The little girl had ceased crying and was
standing with wide, strained eyes fastened on her father. What did it
all mean?

But the father did not say what it meant. As one suddenly overtaken,
he pushed the cat from off his lap, rose, drew a long breath, and
reached for his hat.

Had Martha Matilda been older, she would have tried to detain the one
she had wounded. For he was wounded, just as are we all when suddenly
there comes to us knowledge of long-continued effort being
unappreciated. What was the use of all this struggling, beginning with
the day and closing only when it was ended! He pulled an oat straw
from a stack near, and then leaned on the bars of the cow-yard. Far
beyond him were the snow-caps, now pink with the setting sun--the glow
which the one gone from him had so loved to catch. His throat ached
with suppressed emotion. He had striven so to stand true, to make the
life of the child she had left easier than hers had been, just as he
had promised!

The cows crowded up restlessly against the bars. It was milking time.
Mechanically he returned to the kitchen, brought back with him the
pails, placed a stool and sent the tinkling streams against the shiny
pail. Pail after pail was filled and set aside, then with a gentle pat
for the last meek-eyed Jersey, he brought the milk back to the house,
strained it carefully, filled a saucer for the cat at his feet, rinsed
the pails, and after the cows had been cared for for the night, went
back and hung his hat on its accustomed nail. He crossed to the window
where Martha sat stiff and uncomfortable in the big rocking-chair.
Sitting down in front of her, he tilted his chair forward and, lifting
her hands, stroked them gently.

"I have been thinking it all out down by the cows. It ain't right." He
did not look at the face of the little girl, only at the hands he was
stroking. "It wasn't because I wanted to break my promise to your
ma--it wasn't a bit of that. You see the road was too hard for your
ma; it is always go down or go up here in the mountains, and then it
was always a little more money needed than we had. And when you came
she couldn't bear to have the strain touch you, and almost the last
thing she said was, 'You'll make it easier for her, she's such a
little tot.' It wasn't because I meant to wriggle out of my promise
that made me pretend not to see when your shoes gave out and your
dresses got old and things in the house didn't run straight; it wasn't
that."

There was a great sob in the voice now, and Martha, hearing it, looked
up to find her father's rugged face wet with tears.

"Oh, pa, don't!" and the child's arm reached around her father's neck
and she put her face close against his cheek.

But the man shook himself partially free, as he brushed the tears from
his face.

"And you think as how there ain't been any love in it, when it's been
all love! You see, the trouble's here: In trying to make an easier
road for you than your mother had, I looked all the time at the
further end instead of the nigh end. And I was so afraid that when you
got further on there'd be no backing for you, that I left you without
a backing now. But we will start right over new. I haven't just kept
my promise, 'cause your mother meant it to be at this end and right
straight on. And that's how it should be. We'll start over new. It
ain't ever too late to stop robbing Peter to pay Paul. You go straight
down to Simonses to-morrow morning, Martha Matilda."

The little girl was looking at him now with cheeks flushed with eager
attention. She go down to Simonses! But her father's words held her
again.

"And you buy just as many of them posies as you want, and you get
enough to make a bunch for every one of them girls as took you in, and
you take 'em to them, and tell them that's your Easter gift."

"But pa--"

"There ain't no 'but pa' about it! And you fix a bigger bunch for Miss
Mary, and get a shiny ribbon and tie round it--that's the way your
mother fixed posies when she wanted them nice--and you tell Miss Mary
that's for her Easter. And then you go to the minister's--"

Martha clapped her hands over her lips to keep back a cry of surprise.
She go to the minister's!

"Your mother always went to the minister when anything was wanted. And
you tell him John Graham wants that pew that he had when the church
was first built--Number 25, on the east side, by the second
window--the one that looks out on the mountains. Your mother and I put
a sight of work and good hard money into the building of that church,
and I ought to have stood right by it all along and not dropped out
just because Sunday clothes cost."

"Oh, pa, did you help build that church?"

"Guess there's plenty round as would tell you so, if you asked, though
this minister don't know, 'cause he's new."

"Say, pa, can't I have a red Bible? Of course it wouldn't be just like
getting into Sunday-school regular, like the primaries, but I would
like a red Bible."

"There it is again! All wrong. There's your mother's Bible; I hain't
meant not to give it to you, only I was a-keepin' it till the further
end of the road came when you'd 'preciate it better."

John Graham got up, and taking down a half-filled lamp, lighted it,
the little girl keeping close at his side. From that same upper bureau
drawer he took out a small package and, undoing the handkerchief
wrapped around it, brought to view a Bible with a gilt clasp.

"It ain't a red Bible, but it's a Bible that has been read," he said.
"And here's your name, just as your mother wrote it for you, almost
the last time she handled it."

He opened the fly-leaf, and little Martha, drawing up close to his
arm, read:

[Illustration: (handwritten) Martha Matilda Graham from her Mother. Be
a good girl, Mattie.]

"Oh, pa, how I am being taken into things!" said the little girl, the
tears toppling over her eyes, and her cheeks bright and rosy.

And then the father took Martha on his lap and talked to her of her
mother--of the life she had lived, and of the Bible she read, and of
the God she loved; talked to her as he had never talked in all her ten
years. When he had ended, she put her arms around his neck and held
him close. The clock struck eight and the father arose, lighted the
little girl's candle, and she mounted the crooked stairs to the small
room above. Setting down the candle, she made herself ready for bed,
buttoning on the little white night-dress made of flour-sacks and with
blue XX's on the back, but which "looked all right in front," as
Jerusha said. This done, she blew out the light and, drawing aside the
bit of muslin curtain, gazed out on the clear Colorado night, with the
stars glimmering through. A moment she stood thus, then she pressed
her hands over her face, and bowing her head said, soft and low:

"Be a good girl, Mattie."

How sweet the words were when voiced!

"I will be a good girl--I will," she murmured, and her voice was
tender but strong of purpose. As she laid her head down upon the
pillow she whispered, "How I be taken into things!"

And Martha Matilda never knew that down in the big chair the one she
had left sat with his hand covering his bronzed face, motionless. The
ticking of the clock was the only sound heard. When he arose, the lamp
had burned itself out, and the room stood in darkness. But he failed
to sense it. Within him had been kindled a light brighter than an
Easter dawn. John Graham was ready to take up life anew.

[Illustration: (decoration)]