Essential Novelists - Bret Harte. Bret Harte

and descended the hill to his later claim in the gulch, which yielded him that pittance known in the mining dialect as "grub."

      It was nearly three o'clock before he returned to the cabin with the few tools that he had gathered. When he did so, he found Olly awaiting him, with a slight flush of excitement on her cheek, but no visible evidences of any late employment to be seen in the cabin.

      "Ye don't seem to have been doin' much packin', Olly," said Gabriel—"tho' thar ain't, so to speak, much to pack up."

      "Thar ain't no use in packin', Gabe," replied Olly, looking directly into the giant's bashful eyes.

      "No use?" echoed Gabriel.

      "No sort o' use," said Olly decidedly. "We ain't goin', Gabe, and that's the end on't. I've been over to see Lawyer Maxwell, and I've made it all right!"

      Gabriel dropped speechless into a chair, and gazed, open-mouthed, at his sister. "I've made it all right, Gabe," continued Olly coolly, "you'll see. I jest went over thar this morning, and hed a little talk with the lawyer, and giv him a piece o' my mind about Mrs. Markle—and jest settled the whole thing."

      "Good Lord! Olly, what did you say?"

      "Say?" echoed Olly. "I jest up and told him everythin' I knew about thet woman, and I never told you, Gabe, the half of it. I jest sed ez how she'd been runnin' round arter you ever sence she first set eyes on you, when you was nussin' her husband wot died. How you never ez much ez looked at her ontil I set you up to it! How she used to come round yer, and sit and sit and look at you, Gabe, and kinder do this et ye over her shoulder."—(Here Olly achieved an admirable imitation of certain arch glances of Mrs. Markle that would have driven that estimable lady frantic with rage, and even at this moment caused the bashful blood of Gabriel to fly into his very eyes.) "And how she used to let on all sorts of excuses to get you over thar, and how you refoosed! And wot a deceitful, old, mean, disgustin' critter she was enny way!" and here Olly paused for want of breath.

      "And wot did he say?" said the equally breathless Gabriel.

      "Nothin' at first! Then he laughed and laughed, and laughed till I thought he'd bust! And then—let me see," reflected the conscientious Olly, "he said thar was some 'absurd blunder and mistake'—that's jest what he called thet Mrs. Markle, Gabe—those was his very words! And then he set up another yell o' laughin', and somehow, Gabe, I got to laughin', and she got to laughin' too!" And Olly laughed at the recollection.

      "Who's she?" asked Gabriel, with a most lugubrious face.

      "O Gabe! you think everybody's Mrs. Markle," said Olly swiftly. "She was a lady ez was with thet Lawyer Maxwell, ez heerd it all. Why, Lord! she seemed to take ez much interest in it as the lawyer. P'r'aps," said Olly, with a slight degree of conscious pride as raconteur, "p'r'aps it was the way I told it. I was thet mad, Gabe, and sassy!"

      "And what did he say?" continued Gabriel, still ruefully, for to him, as to most simple, serious natures devoid of any sense of humour, all this inconsequent hilarity looked suspicious.

      "Why, he was fur puttin' right over here 'to explain,' ez he called it, but the lady stopped him, and sed somethin' low I didn't get to hear. Oh, she must be a partickler friend o' his, Gabe—for he did everythin' thet she said. And she said I was to go back and say thet we needn't hurry ourselves to git away at all. And thet's the end of it, Gabe."

      "But didn't he say anythin' more, Olly?" said Gabriel anxiously.

      "No. He begin to ask me some questions about old times and Starvation Camp, and I'd made up my mind to disremember all them things ez I told you, Gabe, fur I'm jest sick of being called a cannon-ball, so I jest disremembered everything ez fast ez he asked it, until he sez, sez he to this lady, 'she evidently knows nothin' o' the whole thing.' But the lady had been tryin' to stop his askin' questions, and he'd been kinder signin' to me not to answer too. Oh, she's cute, Gabe; I could see thet ez soon ez I set down."

      "What did she look like, Olly?" said Gabriel, with an affectation of carelessness, but still by no means yet entirely relieved in his mind.

      "Oh, she didn't look like Mrs. Markle, Gabe, or any o' thet kind. A kinder short woman, with white teeth, and a small waist, and good clo'es. I didn't sort o' take to her much, Gabe, though she was very kind to me. I don't know ez I could say ezackly what she did look like; I reckon thar ain't anybody about yer looks like she. Saints and goodness! Gabe, that's her now; thar she is!"

      Something darkened the doorway. Gabriel, looking up, beheld the woman he had saved in the cañon. It was Madame Devarges!

      BOOK III. THE LEAD.

      CHAPTER I. AN OLD PIONEER OF '49.

      A thick fog, dense, impenetrable, bluish-grey and raw, marked the advent of the gentle summer of 1854 on the California coast. The brief immature spring was scarcely yet over; there were flowers still to be seen on the outlying hills around San Francisco, and the wild oats were yet green on the Contra Costa mountains. But the wild oats were hidden under a dim India-inky veil, and the wild flowers accepted the joyless embraces of the fog with a staring waxen rigidity. In short, the weather was so uncomfortable that the average Californian was more than ever inclined to impress the stranger aggressively with the fact that fogs were healthy, and that it was the "finest climate on the earth."

      Perhaps no one was better calculated or more accustomed to impress the stranger with this belief than Mr. Peter Dumphy, banker and capitalist. His outspoken faith in the present and future of California was unbounded. His sincere convictions that no country or climate was ever before so signally favoured, his intoleration of any criticism or belief to the contrary, made him a representative man. So positive and unmistakable was his habitual expression on these subjects, that it was impossible to remain long in his presence without becoming impressed with the idea that any other condition of society, climate, or civilization than that which obtained in California, was a mistake. Strangers were brought early to imbibe from this fountain; timid and weak Californians, in danger of a relapse, had their faith renewed and their eyesight restored by bathing in this pool that Mr. Dumphy kept always replenished. Unconsciously, people at last got to echoing Mr. Dumphy's views as their own, and much of the large praise that appeared in newspapers, public speeches, and correspondence, was first voiced by Dumphy. It must not be supposed that Mr. Dumphy's positiveness of statement and peremptory manner were at all injurious to his social reputation. Owing to that suspicion with which most frontier communities regard polite concession and suavity of method, Mr. Dumphy's brusque frankness was always accepted as genuine. "You always know what Pete Dumphy means," was the average criticism. "He ain't goin' to lie to please any man." To a conceit that was so freely and shamelessly expressed as to make hesitating and cautious wisdom appear weak and unmanly beside it, Mr. Dumphy added the rare quality of perfect unconscientiousness unmixed with any adulterating virtue. It was with such rare combative qualities as these that Mr. Dumphy sat that morning in his private office and generally opposed the fog without, or rather its influence upon his patrons and society at large. The face he offered to it was a strong one, although superficially smooth, for since the reader had the honour of his acquaintance, he had shaved off his beard, as a probably unnecessary indication of character. It was still early, but he had already despatched much business with that prompt decision which made even an occasional blunder seem heroic. He was signing a letter that one of his clerks had brought him, when he said briskly, without looking up—"Send Mr. Ramirez in."

      Mr. Ramirez, who had already called for three successive days without obtaining an audience of Dumphy, entered the private room with an excited sense of having been wronged, which, however, instantly disappeared, as far as external manifestation was concerned, on his contact with the hard-headed, aggressive, and prompt Dumphy.

      "How do?" said Dumphy, without looking up from his desk. Mr. Ramirez uttered some objection to the weather, and then took a seat uneasily near Dumphy. "Go on," said Dumphy, "I can listen."

      "It is I who came to listen," said Mr. Ramirez, with great suavity. "It is of the news I would hear."

      "Yes," said Mr. Dumphy, signing his name rapidly to several documents, "Yes, Yes, Yes." He