Chapter VII: Part 7

“Dear old Jack!” he said tenderly. “What a fool I have been! Can you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive, my boy--nothing. But you must always be good to her. But never get angry because another man besides yourself worships your wife.”

THE BEAR 'S-HEAD BROOCH, By Ernest Ingersoll

HE story I am about to narrate happened this way, Thomas Burke and I were old schoolmates. But his course and mine had been widely divergent for a score of years, so that by the time he had brought his family back to New York, and our acquaintance could be renewed, many untold things had happened to each.

I knew Tom had won his fortune by mining in the Rocky Mountains. It was rumored that his accomplished wife also had wealth in her own right, but Tom never had much to say in regard to his financial matters, and I did not like to question him notwithstanding our intimacy. I had dined with him two Christmases in succession, and now for the third time had eaten my Christmas dinner at his table.

On each of these occasions Mrs. Burke had worn at her throat a magificient brooch which I had never seen at any other time, though I had met her often when such an ornament would have been suitable enough. This brooch was a bear's face, holding in its teeth a tiny steel key. It was a marvel of delicacy in the goldsmith's art, and evidently very costly; for the eyes were each a ruby, and the head was encircled with large diamonds, half hidden by hairs of gold, as though they represented a collar round bruin's hirsute neck.

“Tom,” I said, when Mrs. Burke had left us to ourselves after dinner, “I am very curious about that bear's head brooch your wife wears. Why do I never see it except at Christmas? I am sure it has a history, and if there is no secret about it I wish you would enlighten me.”

“Well,” said my old friend, “that is rather a lengthy story. There is no secret about it--at least none to keep from an old chum like you. As for the brooch, that's only an ornament I had made some years ago; but the design and the little key--which is a real key--remind Marion and myself of what we call our Christmas story, because it culminated on that day.

“When you and I left the old university in 1870, and you came here, and I went West----”

But if I were to tell the story as he did, it would hardly be as plain to you as it was to me. I must write it out.

When Tom Burke left the university after his graduation he took the few hundred dollars which were the measure of his capital and went to the Rocky Mountains to seek his fortune. In the autumn of 1871 he became the superintendent of the Crimson Canyon Mining Company in Southern Colorado, where he found as assayer, and scientific assistant generally, a queer, learned and proud old Scotchman named Corbitt. This man had been one of the “Forty-niners” and had made a fortune which he had greatly enjoyed while it lasted, and the loss of which, in some wrong-headed speculation, he never ceased to deplore.

Now, a few weeks before Tom's arrival at the camp, Corbitt's home had been brightened by the coming of his daughter Marion, on what he told his envious acquaintances was a “veesit,” implying that she could not be expected to make her home there.

And truly this remote mountain settlement, inclement in climate, uncouth, dusty, filled with rough men, and bountiful only in pure air and divine pictures of crag and glen, icy-blue peaks and chromatic patches of stained cliff above or flower meadow below--all this was anything but the sort of place for a girl like her to spend her maiden days in.

Perhaps it was not quite a case of love at first sight between her and Tom, but certainly the winter had not passed before each had confessed that there was no one else in the world beside the other whose presence much mattered in the way of happiness.

But that seemed to be the end of it, for Corbitt gave young Burke to understand most decisively that he could hope for nothing more--an engagement to marry was out of the question.

“Love, let us wait,” was Marion's last word, when, on her first and last tryst, she had stolen away to meet him, and he counted her kisses as a miser counts his gold.

“Let us wait. I care for nobody else, and nobody can marry me against my will. We are young yet. Who knows what may happen? You may get money enough to satisfy papa--I don't suppose he holds me at a very, very high price, do you? Or I may be freer after a while to do as I wish.”

This was commonplace advice enough, but Tom saw both the good sense and the pure love in it, and accepted the decree, steeling his heart against the impulses of rage and revolt.

And then, quite unexpectedly, Mr. Corbitt resigned his place and went to Denver, taking his family with him. The same week the mine changed owners, and Burke was superseded by a new superintendent; and so, almost at a stroke, the lad lost both his sweetheart and the weapon by which he was to fight for her in the business tournament of the world. However, the latter evil was presently remedied, and he worked on, saving his money and teasing his brain for suggestions how to make it increase faster.

At that time the mighty range had never been very carefully prospected. Men had, indeed, ascended Crimson Creek to its sources in search of the deposits of quartz whence the auriferous gravels below had been enriched, but they had brought back a discouraging report. Tom was not satisfied to accept their conclusions. He was confident, from the geological and other indications, that treasures of ore lay undiscovered among those azure heights. At last, resolved to see for himself, he enlisted the help of a young miner and mountaineer named Cooper, and one day late in August they started.

After passing the pillared gateways of the Canyon, and ascending for a few miles the great gorge down which the creek cascaded over boulders and ledges of granite and rounded fragments of trachyte and quartz, you come to a noble cataract leaping into the Canyon from the left through a narrow gash or depression in the wall. By climbing up the opposite slope a little way, you see that this stream comes tumbling white and furious down a long rugged stairway of rocky fragments before it reaches the brink, whence it shoots out in the air and then falls in a thousand wreaths of dangling vapor.

“Cooper,” Tom called out to his companion, who was more comrade than servant, “I guess we'll camp here. I want to examine this side gorge a bit.”

“It looks to me,” remarked Tom, “as if this had formerly been the main stream, and had carried pretty much all the drainage of the valley until a big landslide--and it didn't happen so very long ago either--dammed the exit of the valley and changed the shape of things generally, eh?”

“That's about the size of it, I guess. But, I say, ain't that smoke down there by the lake?”

“I reckon we've got time enough to go and see. It ain't far down there, and the moon'll show us the way back if we get late.”

Noting their bearings, they began the descent toward the lake and presently came out upon its border, where the walking was easier. Advancing cautiously half a mile or thereabout, they again caught sight of the smoke through the bushes--a feeble column rising from some embers before a small shelter of boughs and bark that hardly deserved the name of hut. A skillet, a light pick and shovel, and one or two other household articles lay near by, but nothing alive appeared.

“No Injun 'bout that,” said Cooper.

“No, Cooper; more likely a prospector.”

Hallooing as they neared the hut, a lean and miserable dog rushed out and greeted them with ferocious growls, whereupon they heard a weak voice speaking to him, and saw a frowsy gray head and a bony hand, clutching a revolver, stretched out of the opening that answered for a door.

“Hello!” Tom cried. “Call off your dog; we're friends.”

Then a tousled, ragged, gaunt-limbed figure, emaciated with hunger, wild eyed with fever, dragged itself from the sheltering brush, gave one long look at the stalwart strangers, and fell back on the stony ground in a dead faint, while the dog, rushing forward with the courage of a starved wolf, planted himself before the corpse-like form and defied them to touch it.

They fought off the animal, brought water from the lake and revived the man. A dram from Tom's flask stimulated him, whereupon he sat up and began to chatter incoherently, thanks to God and wild exclamations about some hidden treasure mingling with such plaintive cries as “She'll be all right now!” and “Mebbe she'll forgive her old dad!” making up the whole of his ceaseless talk.

“He's clean crazy!” was Cooper's opinion.

“Yes,” Tom assented, “but it is fever and famine. Couldn't you shoot a rabbit or something? Then I could make him a stew. Try it.”

But all that Cooper could quickly find to kill were three mountain jays, which were converted into a broth, thickened with the dust of flour that remained. A little tea was also found in the sick man's pack, and this was brewed for him. Then Cooper volunteered to go back to their own camp and bring over more food and Tom's little medicine case.

The next day he fetched the rest of their luggage, and in the afternoon shot a deer. So they encamped here beside the lake and nursed the old fellow until his fever subsided and the delirium had ceased to a great extent. Then by easy stages, partly carrying him on a stretcher, partly assisting him to walk, they managed to take him back to Crimson Camp and gave him a bed in Tom's cabin.

But the strain of this effort had been too much for the aged and feeble frame. No sooner was the excitement of the march at an end than a relapse occurred, and for a fortnight the old man hovered on the edge of death; skill and care seemed to conquer, however, and one morning peace came to the tortured brain and the old prospector began to get better.

Now at last he was awake, with seeming intelligence in his eyes, asking where he was and who were the people around him. Tom explained and then questioned him in return.

But the mystery was not to be so easily solved. The invalid could not tell his name, nor where he had come from. He said he had been prospecting all his life--where--how long--all particulars were a blank.

“I can't remember anything but the cache--nothing else at all,” he declared, gazing piteously into one face after another.

“Tell us about that, then.”

He felt in his bosom and drew out the little pouch. It was opened for him and its contents--a fragment of quartz heavy with gold and a tiny steel key--taken out.

“Ah! What do you call that?” he inquired eagerly, pointing to the yellow metal.

“Gold.”

“Yes? Well, there is lots of that in my cache.”

“Where is your cache?” inquired Tom.

The old fellow dropped his head and tried to think, but couldn't clutch any of the motes of memory dodging like phantasmagoria before his eyes.

“I can't tell,” he confessed, with infinite sadness. “I reckon I'd know the place if I saw it. And I've forgotten everything before that, but it seems to me that I fell a great ways, and lay for years and years with an awful pain in my head. Then all at once my head got better and I opened my eyes--mebbe it was a dream--and there I and the dog were in a little camp 'way up a big gulch. I knew the place, but I felt kind o' weak and dizzy-like and 'lowed I'd make a cache o' all my stuff, and go down to Del Nort' and see a doctor. So I dug a hole beside a big rock that had a peculiar mark on it, and put into it most o' my grub and some papers, and a lot o' that yellow stuff--what d'ye call it?--and reckoned they'd be safe till I come back in three or four weeks. I can remember all about the cache and my camp there, and my leavin' it and climbin' down a devilish steep place, and there I stop and can't remember nothin' since.”

This was absolutely all that was left of the man's memory, and, though he was now quite sane, he had to be taught the names and uses of many of the commonest objects. Moreover, he seemed to grow weaker instead of stronger, and after a few days the physician announced that his patient's end was near. When the old fellow was told this he called Tom to his bedside, and said to him:

“Pardner, you've done the square thing by me, and I want you to have half the traps in that cache after I've passed in my checks, and give the other half to--to--oh, God! Now I can't remember!”

Then his face brightened again.

“Oh, the letters'll tell! Read the letters and give her half of it. I'll sign a paper if you'll write it.”

So a will was made, and the dying man made a mark before witness, in lieu of the signature he had lost the power to make, and the next day he died.

The miners generally believed the stranger's story of this cache to be a figment of his disordered imagination, and Tom himself might have yielded to this theory had not the physician assured him that there was a fair chance of its truth.

So Tom preserved the will, the quartz and the key, hoping that chance might sometime disclose the treasure trove if there were any; and a few days later he and young Cooper started a second time on their prospecting tour. This time they took a burro with them, and so were able to carry a small tent and outfit for a fortnight's trip.

By active marching they reached the lake that night, finding it slow work to get their unwilling donkey up the steep rocks at the fall, by a circuitous trail and aided by some actual lifting of the little beast. They researched the hut, but found nothing new. The dog, now fat and strong, and a devoted friend, accompanied them and betrayed most excitedly his recognition of the bivouac. Next morning they made their way up to the head of the lake, where the breadth of the gulch and the appearance of things confirmed Tom's previous surmise that this was originally the main channel of drainage.

If this were true they ought to get evidence of drift gold; and several days were spent in panning the gravels (nowhere, however, of great extent), with most encouraging results. A few miles above the lake they found the gulch forked into two ravines divided by a rocky spur. They chose the right-hand one and lost three days in fruitless exploration of its bed and walls. Shep (the dog was a collie and they had rechristened him) did not display anything like the joy he had shown in the advance up the main stream, and when they finally returned to the forks they could not but notice his renewed spirits. The dog was again all eagerness, and intensely delighted when on the following morning they started up the left-hand gulch.

“It looks as though his master had come down that way, doesn't it?” said Tom. “Maybe he could guide us right back to where he came from; but he'll have to wait a while, for I like the look of that crag up there,” directing his companion's attention to the crest of the wall on the left, “and I want to examine it. You'd better stay here and try to get a blacktail. Bacon three times a day is getting monotonous.”

“Don't you think you'd better take the Winchester?” said Cooper. (They had brought but one rifle.) “You might hit up against a grizzly or a mountain lion. I heard one of 'em screeching last night.”

“No; I can't lug a gun. I've got my six shooter, and I'll risk it. Come on, Shep! It's noon now, and we won't get back to supper if we don't hurry.”

The dog raced gleefully ahead as the young man strode up the gulch, scanning its rugged slope in search of a convenient place to begin the ascent, and presently, as though cognizant of the plan, the dog turned aside and with loud barking and much tail wagging invited attention to a dry watercourse that offered a sort of path.

“I guess you're right, Shep,” Tom assented, and set his face to the sturdy climb.

Half way up a ledge, covered with cedars and Spanish bayonet, made the ascent really arduous for a little way, and here the dog, which as usual was some rods in advance, suddenly began barking furiously, and capering around a small object.

“Chipmunk, I reckon,” said Tom to himself, as he scrambled on, short of breath; but when Shep came sliding down, holding in his mouth a battered old felt hat, curiosity changed to amazement. The dog growled at first, and refused to give up his prize, but after a little coaxing yielded it into Tom's hands.

The old prospector had had no hat when found. Could this be it? It did not seem to have lain out of doors long, and the dog would hardly show so much interest unless his sharp nose had recognized it as something belonging to his former inaster. Closely scrutinizing, Tom found tucked into the lining a slip of sweat-stained paper with a name upon it--

ARTHUR F. PIERSON,

Tucsony Arizona.

Stuffing the hat into his pocket Tom scrambled on, thinking out the meaning of the incident; and now he began to notice in this steeper place that some of the boulders had been misplaced, and here and there was a broken branch, as, if someone had descended very hastily or clumsily.

“If that crazy old man came down here, and perhaps caught a second bad fall, I don't wonder he was used up by the time he reached the lake” was Tom's mental ejaculation, as he toiled up the acclivity and at last, panting and leg weary, gained a narrow grassy level at the foot of a crag “spiked with firs,” which had been conspicuous from the valley not only by its height and castellated battlements, but because a colossal X was formed on its face by two broad veins of quartz crossing each other.

With his eyes fixed upon the rocky wall he walked along in the face of a stiff breeze, until he noticed a pinkish streak upon the dark cliff, betokening the outcrop of another vein, and turned aside to climb a pile of fallen fragments at the foot of the crag to reach it. These fragments were overgrown with low, dense shrubbery. He ducked his head and was pushing into them, when suddenly he saw a huge brown body rise almost into his face, heard the tremendous growl of a grizzly, and amid a crash of bushes and dislodged stones felt himself hurled backward.

Clutching instinctively at one of the shrubs as he fell, he whirled under its hiding foliage, and the vicious stroke of the bear's paw came down upon his leg instead of his head, while the released branches snapped upward into the face of the brute, which, as much surprised as its victim, paused in its onslaught to collect its wits. An instant later Shep dashed up, and at the bear's hindquarters. Bruin spasmodically sank his claws deeper into Tom's thigh, but turned his head and shoulders with a terrific ursine oath at this new and most palpable enemy; and ten seconds afterward Tom's revolver, its muzzle pressed close underneath the bear's ear, had emptied half an ounce of lead into its brain. A blood-freezing death squeal tore the air, and the ponderous carcass sank down, stone dead, upon Tom's body and upon the dwarfed spruce which covered it. It pinned him to the ground with an almost insupportable weight. Perhaps if the animal alone had lain upon him he might have wriggled out; but the brute's carcass also held down the tough and firmly-rooted tree, and the rocks on each side formed a sort of trough. Turn and strain as he would Tom could not free himself from the burden which threatened to smother him. Moreover, the convulsive death throe had forcibly tightened the grip of the claws in the side of his knee, which felt as if in some horrible torturing machine of the Inquisition; and had he not been able at last to reach that paw with his left hand and pull it away from the wound he would have died under the agony.

Then, as he felt the blood running hot and copious down his leg, a new fear chilled his heart. Might he not bleed to death? There seemed no end to the hemorrhage, and what hope had he of succor? He thought of firing signals of distress, but could not reach the pistol, which had been knocked out of his hand. He spoke to the dog, which was barking and worrying at the bear's hind leg, and Shep came and licked his face and sniffed at his blood-soaked trousers. Then, as if even he realized how hopeless was the situation, he sat on his haunches and howled until Tom, hearing him less and less distinctly, imagined himself a boulder slowly but musically crunching to powder under the resistless advance of a glacier, and lost consciousness as the cold-blue dream-ice closed over his dust.

By and by he awoke. It was dark, and something cold and soft was blowing against his face. He moved and felt the shaggy fur and the horrible pain in his leg and in his right arm, which was confined in a twisted position. Then he remembered, but forgot again.

A second time he awoke. It was still dark, but a strange pallor permeated the air, and all around him was a mist of white.

It was snowing fast. He closed his left hand and grasped a whole fistful of flakes. The body of the bear was a mound of white--like a new-made grave over him, he dismally thought. The snow had drifted under and about his shoulders. Its chill struck the wound in his thigh, which throbbed as though hit with pointed hammers, keeping time to the pulsations of his heart; but, thank God! he no longer felt that horrible warm trickling down his leg. He had been preserved from bleeding to freeze to death. How long before that would happen; or, if it were not cold enough for that, how long before the snow would drift clear over him and cut off the little breath which that ponderous, inert, dead-cold beast on his chest prevented from entering his lungs? Where was the dog? He called feebly: “Shep! Shep! Hi-i-i, Sh-e-p!” But no moist nose or rough tongue responded. He tried to whistle, but his parched mouth refused. Heavens, how thirsty! He stretched out his hand and gathered the snow within his reach. Then he closed his eyes and dreamed that two giants were pulling him asunder, and that a third was pouring molten lead down his throat.

But it was only Bill Cooper trying to make him drink whiskey.

He understood it after a little and realized that he ought to swallow. Then life came back, and with the knowledge that he was no longer alone on the cold, remote, relentless mountain top, but that Cooper was lifting away the bear, and that Shep was wild with sympathy and gladness because he had been able to bring help, came courage and forbearance of his suffering. In the morning new strength came with the sunshine. The snow rapidly melted. Cooper got breakfast and Tom rebandaged his knee.

“These gashes won't amount to much, unless the claws were poisoned. You'll have to make me a crutch, and give me a couple of days to get rid of the stiffness, but then I'll be all right.”

“How did you and the bear get into this scrimmage, anyhow? You surely didn't go hunting him with that there six shooter?”

“Not I. The wind was blowing hard toward me, so he didn't smell nor hear me, and I ran right on to him. Shep was not there to warn me, but if he hadn't come back just as he did, or if I hadn't been able to get at my revolver, Old Ephraim would ha' used me up in about a minute.”

“I ain't a betting on one pistol shot against a grizzly, anyhow.”

“Of course, the chances were about one in a thousand, but I wasn't going to die without a shot. I suppose the bullet struck the lower part of the brain.”

“Yes,” said Bill, who had been probing its track. “Tore it all to pieces. But what was the bear after in that brush?”

“Give it up--ants, likely. You know--Great Scott! What's that dog got now?” Shep was coming out of the bushes, dragging a package wrapped in buckskin which was almost too heavy for him to handle. Cooper went and took it from him and brought it to the fire. It was a sort of pouch firmly tied with a thong. Running a knife under this the bundle fell apart, and a double handful of flakes and nuggets of gold and quartz rolled out.

“The cache!” Tom shouted, comprehending instantly the meaning of this. “The bear was tearing it to pieces!”

It was true. His strong feet had displaced the loosely-heaped stones, and a half-devoured side of bacon lay close by where the animal had been disturbed.

Evidently the marauder had just begun his work. There remained in the cache two more pouches of gold--perhaps a quart of the metal pieces in all, more or less pure, for all of it had been dug out of a vein with hammer and knife point, none of the fragments showing the water-worn roundness characteristic of placer gold. Then there were a small quantity of provisions, some ammunition and a small rosewood box with an ornamental brass lock having a remarkably small and irregular keyhole.

From an inner pocket of his purse Tom drew the odd little key the dead prospector had given him. It fitted into the hole and easily turned the lock. The cover sprang open, revealing a package of letters. He lifted them out, but did not pause to read them.

Then came an envelope containing a patent to ranch lands in Arizona, certificates of stock in Mexican and other mines that Burke had never heard of, and a commission as lieutenant of artillery in the Confederate army. All these documents were made out to “Arthur F. Pierson,” establishing the fact that the lost hat was really that worn by the old man, as his dog had recognized.

At the bottom of the box, however, Tom found what interested him most--a formal “claim” and description of the lode whence the gold had been taken, and how to reach it from this cache. It was written in pencil, in a very shaky hand, on two or three soiled leaves torn from a memorandum book and eked out with one of the covers.

Then Tom took up the letters. Most of them were recent and of business importance, but several were old and worn with much handling. One of these latter was from a lawyer in San Francisco, acknowledging funds “sent for the support of your infant daughter,” describing her health and growth, and the care taken of her “at the convent”--all in curt business phrase, but precious to the father's heart. Then there were two or three small letters, printed and scratched in a childish hand, to “dear, dear papa,” and signed “Your little Polly.” One of these spoke of Sister Agatha and Sister Theresa, showing that it was written while the child was still in the convent; but the others, a little later, prattled about a new home with “my new papa and mamma,” but gave no clew to name or place.

“This baby girl--she must be a young woman now, if she lives,” Tom mused--“is evidently the person the poor old chap wanted me to divide with. It ought not to be difficult to trace her from San Francisco, I suppose the convent Sisters knew where she went to when they gave her up. But, hello! here's a picture.”

It was an old-fashioned daguerrotype of a handsome woman of perhaps four-and-twenty, in bridal finery, whose face seemed to him to have something familiar in its expression. But no name or date was to be found, and with the natural conclusion that this was probably Pierson's wife he puzzled a moment more over the pretty face, and then put it away.

After a few days, when Burke was able to travel, the prospector's memorandum and their mountain craft together led them almost directly to the coveted gold vein, which ran across a shoulder of the mountain at the head of the gulch, like an obscure trail, finally disappearing under a great talus at the foot of a line of snowcapped crags.

Tracing it along, they presently came upon the old man's claim marks. The stakes were lettered pathetically with the name of the old man's choosing--“Polly's Hope.”

Adjoining the “Hope” Tom staked out one claim for himself and another for his sweetheart, intending to do the proper assessment work on it himself if Corbitt couldn't or wouldn't; and Cooper used up most of what remained of the visible outcrop in a claim for himself.

Returning to town their claims were registered in the Crimson Mineral District, and their report sent a flight of gold hunters in hot haste to the scene.

Tom Burke, after selling everything he could send to market to turn into ready money, departed to Denver, carrying with him documents and specimens of the gold quartz to support his assertions.

Keen men fêted and flattered him, buttonholing him at every corner with whispered advice, and many proffered schemes. But he was indifferent to it all, and anxious as yet only to hear what Marion should say.

Not a word had he heard from her directly during all the weeks of her absence, but indirectly he knew she had been a star in the local society. He had even to hunt out where she lived, finding it in a cottage near where the stately court house now stands.

He went there, after tea, with a fastbeating heart. Had she forgotten, or withdrawn or been turned away by hardhearted parents and friends? He suspected everything and everybody, yet could give no reasons. And how absurd these fears looked to him--how _foolish!_--when, sitting in the little parlor, hand in hand, they talked over the past, and she confided that the same doubts had worried her now and then--“most of all, Tom, dear, when I hear of this wonderful success of yours.”

“Bless me! I had forgotten it. By your side all else----”

Here the door opened--not too abruptly--and Mr. Corbitt came in, grimly hospitable and glad, no doubt for his own sake, to see this young fellow who was still true to his daughter; while Mrs. Corbitt was more openly cordial, as became her.

“An' what's this we're hearin' aboot your new mines? They're sayin' down town that you've struck a regular bonanza, an'll soon be worth your meellions. But I told 'em 'Hoot! I'd heard the like o' that before!'”

So Tom recounted briefly the story of the prospector's death and his will; still more briefly his adventure with the grizzly, and how it led to the curious disclosure of the cache. Then, with no little dramatic force, seeing how interested was his audience, he described the hunt for the vein and the finding it, produced his specimens and handed to Miss Marion a mass of almost solid gold embedded in its matrix.

“I can't promise you,” he said, as she tried to thank him with her eyes and a timid touch of her fingers, “that the whole ledge will equal that, but it is a genuine sample from near the surface.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” the old Scotchman ejaculated, with gleaming eyes, as Tom went on to show how regular and secure was the title to this possession. “But did ye no find out the name of the poor vagabone?”

“Oh, yes. Didn't I mention it? His name was Arthur Pierson.”

Corbitt and his wife both started from their seats.

“Man, did I hear ye aright?--_Arthur F. Pierson?_”

“That was the name exactly. I can show it to you on the letters.”

“An' he charged ye to give the half of all ye found to his daughter Polly?”

“Yes, and I mean to try to find her.”

“_There she sits!_” cried Mother Corbitt excitedly, before her cautious husband, could say “Hush!”--pointing at Marion, who gazed from one to the other, too much amazed to feel grieved yet at this stunning announcement. “We took the lassie when she was a wee bairn, and she would never ha' known she wasn't ours really till maybe we were dead and gone. Her feyther was a cankert, fashious body, but her mother was guid and bonnie (I knew her well in the auld country) and she died when Mary--that's you, my dearie--was born.”

“Is this her picture?” Tom asked, showing the daguerrotype.

“Aye, that it is. Puir Jennie!”

The rest is soon told. A company of capitalists was formed to work the four consolidated claims on the new vein, under the name of the Hope Mining Company.

All the next season was spent by Tom Burke in developing the property and erecting machinery. Corbitt was there too, much thawed by the sun of prosperity, but his wife and daughter remained in Denver. In the autumn, however, the ladies went East, and as the holidays approached Tom and Corbitt followed them to New York, where, on Christmas eve, my hero and heroine were married quietly in a little church up town; and his gift to her was the brooch which had attracted my attention and whose significance was now plain.

MISS GWYNNE'S BURGLAR, By Violet Etynge Mitchell

|IN the heart of Wales, nestling between two dark frowning mountains, and lulled to drowsy indifference of the big outside world by the murmurs of the not far distant sea, stands the little village of Cod-y-glyn.

Just outside the village, on the main road stands--or did stand ten years ago--an old stone house, in the middle of a large garden, which was surrounded on all sides by a high wall, also of stone. It was the pride of the owner, Miss Gwynne.

One night, in the early spring of the year, there was to be a wedding at Cod-y-Glyn--a wedding in humble life, but anticipated with great glee by the invited guests, among whom were Miss Gwynne's servants, the coachman and his wife (who was also cook) and Ylva, their daughter, employed as a maid-of-all-work.

Knowing the disappointment it would be to them if they were denied the pleasure of attending the wedding, she had declined the coachman's offer to remain with her, allowing his wife and daughter to go, and laughingly assured him that with her father's gun for company she feared nothing.

Miss Gwynne retired at an early hour, having locked up the house.

She lay for some time gazing through the window at the twinkling stars, lost in quiet retrospection.

I will let Miss Gwynne tell the rest of the story in her own way, repeating as well as I can from memory the words as I heard them from her lips ten years ago.

*****

I cannot tell if I dozed or not, but I was conscious of the moon shining dimly through the clouds, and I wondered how long I had lain there. Reaching out for my watch, which lay on the table, I was horrified to feel my wrist grasped and held by a firm hand.

To say I was frightened would be less correct than to say I was astounded, for I have always been a woman of steady nerve, and the present occasion called for its use.

The moon had retired behind a heavy curtain of clouds, and the room was in complete darkness, but from the drapery at my bedside issued a voice, and at the same time the python-like grasp on my wrist relaxed.

“I beg to apologize, madam,” said this voice; “I have chosen a bungling manner of awakening you--foreign to my custom. Pardon me, and do not be alarmed. I merely wish to relieve you of any superfluous silver, jewelry or bank notes you do not absolutely need. But as the vandalism of breaking locks is out of my line, I will request you to arise and show me where such things are kept.”

By the time he had finished this speech I was myself again.

“Very well,” I said, “I'll get up and show you; but, as it is embarrassing to dress in your presence, will you step out into the hall and close the door while I put on my clothing?”

There was a soft rustling of the curtains at the bedside, and the sound of footsteps on the carpet, and immediately afterward the door closed.

“Five minutes, madam, is all I can give you,” remarked the burglar, as he disappeared.

It took me (after lighting the candle) two minutes to slip on a warm skirt, and a blue flannel wrapper over it; then, sticking my feet into a pair of down slippers, I had still time to snatch a roll of bills amounting to one hundred pounds, and pin them deftly to the lining of the canopy above my four-post bed.

Then throwing open the door I stood on the sill facing my visitor, and threw the glare of the lighted candle full upon him, as he lolled in a careless, easy attitude against the bannisters.

I had been prepared for a burglar--but I had looked for one attired according to the traditions of my ancestors. But here was a gentlemanly, mild-featured individual, such as I should have expected to find filling the position of a professor of Latin--perhaps of theology--in Oxford University.

There was no appearance of a jimmy, or tools of any kind. Evidently here was a type of criminal with which history was unacquainted.

“Madam!” he exclaimed, bowing with the grace of a French courtier, “you are punctuality itself. And how charming!--no hysterics--no distressing scenes. Allow me.” He took the candle from my hand, and holding it aloft preceded me down the great oaken stairs, talking fluently all the while, but pausing at every other step to glance over his shoulder at me with coquettish politeness.

“I wish to assure you,” he remarked, “that I am no ordinary house-breaker. Burglary is with me a _profession_, though not the one (I confess) chosen for me by my parents. I saw, at an early age, that I must either descend to the level of the burglar, or raise him to the level of an artist. Behold, my dear lady, the result.”

He stood at the foot of the stairs and looked up at me.

“Shall we proceed to the diningroom?” he asked airily; “and, as I wish to give you no unnecessary trouble, let me say that I do not dabble in _plated_ spoons; nothing but solid silver.”

I opened the old mahogany sideboard, in which Griffiths had, for years, placed the family heirlooms at night, and beheld my gentlemanly burglar stow them, one after another, in a capacious felt sack, which he carried in his hand.

“Charming!” he cried. “I am a connoisseur, I assure you, and I know silver from plate. These articles are really worth the risk of the enterprise.”

You ask me if I was not alarmed. No, I was _not_. Personal violence was not in his professional line, unless opposed. I summoned all my energies to outwit him. I thought much and said little, for I had no intention of allowing him to carry off my mother's silver.

After having rifled all the rooms of the most valuable articles, he returned to the dining-room.

On the table the remains of supper still stood, consisting of a fowl, hardly touched, some delicately cut bread and butter, cake, and a glass jar containing some fancy crackers.

“I will make myself entirely at home,” he remarked, sitting down to the table, and helping himself to a wing of the chicken.

“Really,” he proceeded, “I have thoroughly enjoyed this evening. Not only have I met a most charming lady, but I have been able to prove to her that the terms gentleman and burglar may be synonomous.”

He now began on the cake. I pushed the cracker jar toward him. “Try them,” I observed.

Still smiling indulgently, and talking, he took out one of the crackers and began to nibble on it. It was _very dry_.

I rose, and in an absent-minded manner placed on the table the remains of a bottle of rare old Burgundy, which had been opened the day before.

“Now, really,” he prattled, “I'm a very harmless man five months out of six--I never steal unless other means fail, or a tailor's bill comes due. I'm a respectable citizen and--a church member in good standing when I'm not on one of my professional tours. I took up burglary more as a resource than from necessity. Candidly speaking, now, _am_ I a ruffian?”

“No!” I replied, looking directly at him. “On the contrary, you are a very fine-looking man.”

A glow of vanity spread over his face. I poured out a glass of the Burgundy and pushed it toward him.

“England to Wales!” he cried with gallantry. “I don't generally drink,” he added, “but these crackers make me thirsty.”

“If I could only find a wife suited to my tastes,” he mused, “such a woman as _you_ are, by George! I'd give up aesthetic burglary and settle down to quiet domestic bliss.” He looked questioningly at me. “If”--he hesitated--“you could be sure I would abandon my profession--would you--do you think you could--condone my past and--marry me?”

“That is a matter for consideration,” I replied.

He helped himself to another cracker.

“Your proposal is so startlingly unique,” I continued, “to marry one's burglar! Really it is quite a joke.”

“Isn't it?” he chuckled, evidently enjoying the idea of the oddity. “We are kindred spirits!” he exclaimed, convivially, but was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing.

Seizing the bottle of Burgundy, he drained the only drop or two left.

“I think, maybe, there's another bottle down in the cellar,” I cried, artlessly. “I'll go down and see--I feel thirsty myself.”

“We will descend together,” exclaimed my burglar, gallantly taking the candle from my hand and following me to the door leading to the cellar steps.

We descended the steps chatting pleasantly--he discoursing on matrimony, I answering rather vaguely, but measuring the distance to the wine bins by my eye. They were at the far end of the cellar, and were five in number, each large enough to hold a quarter of a ton of coal. Before the furthest one I paused.

“Here,” I said, “is the brand we are looking for.” I raised the heavy lid and looked in. “I will hold the candle,” I observed; “will you get the bottle? I can hardly reach it.”

He handed me the candle and bent low over the bin. Ha! ha! Quicker than a flash of lightning I tipped up his heels (he was easily overbalanced), and into the bin he fell headlong. Down came the heavy lid. But there was no padlock on it. I must hurry! Blowing out the candle, I ran, for I knew the way, straight to the cellar steps and up them--like a cat. Then with a locked door between myself and my burglar, I could breathe.

I heard the man kicking about down below, for of course he got out of the bin at once. But our cellar is a labyrinth. Seizing father's old gun from its resting-place in the hall, I sat down near the door at the head of the stairs, waiting for the worst.

The door was fairly strong--that I knew; but he was a powerful man. So I dragged a heavy table from the sitting-room and placed it against it.

Suddenly I became conscious that he had found his way to the stairs and was rapidly approaching the door, which was all that lay between me and his revengeful fury.

Bracing myself against the opposite wall, I raised the old gun, and, deliberately aiming it, waited.

He began by pounding with both fists on the door, but, not receiving any answer, he tried threats. An instinct seemed to tell him I would remain on guard.

His language, I must confess, while threatening, was not abusive. It was, in fact, incredibly elegant for a burglar, and strictly grammatical.

All at once there came a crash, followed by the creaking of heavy timber, and the door fell. Down he came on top of it, sprawling at my feet on the floor. I raised my gun and fired.

“Hit him?” I interrupted.

“No,” replied Miss Gwynne; “here in the wall of the dining-room the bullet lodged, and is still there.”

The next thing I was conscious of was Mrs. Griffiths bending over me, and her husband's voice exclaiming:

“He'd never have escaped if we had not left that door open when we came in. You see we got home just in time to hear you fire the gun, and as we ran in he ran out. Drat him!”

I raised myself on my elbow and looked eagerly about.

“He had no time to carry off a thing,” said Mrs. Griffiths.

* * * * *

“I would like to set my eyes on him,” I remarked, when Miss Gwynne had concluded her story. “You are a distinguished woman and are--I believe--the very first one who ever received an offer of marriage from a burglar.”

The lady smiled. “Do you not remember reading about the capture of a notorious bank robber, several years ago? The case created quite a sensation, owing partly to the difficulty in tracing the thief, who was clever enough to puzzle the most expert detectives and evade the police, and also to the respectability of his position. No one could believe him guilty.”

“Indeed I do remember it,” I answered. “Not only that, but I _saw_ the man after he was in prison. I happened to be going through Chester Jail at the time and J------ was pointed out to me. He was quite distinguished looking. In fact, I did not believe him guilty.”

“Nor would I,” said Miss Gwynne, “if I had not known.”

“You mean,” I said, “that he----

“I mean that you saw _my burglar_.”

THE LADY IN ROUGE, By W. E. P. French

“Pretty woman! That's just like a man. Pretty chromo, you mean, Tom.”

“Well,” in a hearty, pleasant voice, “maybe you are the better judge; but I don't believe she's 'made up,' and if I wasn't the most henpecked man on earth I'd say she was the loveliest creature I ever saw. As for her hair, it's----”

“Blondined! And so utterly impossible in color that it couldn't for a moment fool anybody but a man,” interrupted the first speaker, with deliciously spiteful emphasis on the very common noun man.

“Eyebrows stencilled, eyelashes darkened; lips, ears and finger tips tinged with carmine--don't you know? Complexion enamel, vinegar rouge and brunette powder--pshaw! The way the men go on about her makes me positively ill. If you fall in love with her, Harry, you are no brother of mine. I don't care to be sister-in-law to a lithograph in _fast_ colors.”

“You make me curious to see her, Nell, dear. By Jove, she must be either a monster or a paragon! Have the spirit of a man, Tom, and tell me which.”

“Don't try to extract any more information from me, old man; my teeth are positively chattering with terror. You can decide for yourself this evening, if your ferocious sister will allow you to leave your room. By the way,” with an amused laugh, “what do you suppose Nell and the rest of her charitable sex up here have dubbed the poor girl? 'The lady in rouge!'”

“Yes, and she ought to have a sign, 'Paint, don't touch.' I believe she is a divorcée or a widow, and I know she's thirty in spite of her sickening affectation of youth.”

“Oh, come, Nell, you are absolutely vicious. She is not a day over twenty, and she has the prettiest name I ever heard, Violante Solander; accent on the second syllable, Harry, not on the first, to rhyme with Hollander, as the bride of my bosom insists on pronouncing it.”

“Sounds like a combination of Spanish and Scandinavian,” the younger man answers.

“It is,” returns his brother-in-law. “I have met her father several times at the Cosmos Club in Washington. He is a Norwegian, a wonderfully handsome man, of the purest blonde type, with charming old-time manners and a voice as deep and sonorous as a fine bell. Jack Kendricks, who knows him quite well, told me something of his history. As a young man he traveled pretty much all over the world, and in South America met and married Miss Viola's mother. She was an Ecuadorean of Spanish descent, and so beautiful that she was called, in reference to her name, which was the same as her daughter's, 'The Violet of Quito.' It is really a case of the Arctic zone wedding the Equator.”

“Or of a walrus committing matrimony with a llama. No wonder she is neither fish, flesh nor fowl,” added madame, with a malicious emphasis that made both men laugh.

This conversation floated up to me as I sat smoking my cigar on the forward edge of the hurricane deck of the little steamer that carried passengers from the railroad station at the foot of a beautiful and well-known lake in the Adirondacks to the village at the head of it, whither we were all bound.

The party of three had crossed from the other side of the boat and Were leaning against the guards immediately under me. Later on I came to know them all well. The lady was a delightful little bundle of inconsistencies, sharp of tongue, quick of temper and jealous of all that belonged to her, but as generous as an Arab, very warm hearted, perfectly fearless and honest and a loyal friend when won. She was born Miss Eleanor Van Zandt, a family with a tree and traditions, pride, possessions and position; but the fact that she belonged in the top layer of the Four Hundred did not prevent her, some ten years before, refusing a scion of the English nobility (a very wealthy one, too, if you'll believe me), to her mother's Infinite disgust, and giving her dimpled little hand, where she had already given her heart, to big, kindly, genial Thomas Northrup, who was every inch a man and a gentleman, but who was third in direct descent (and gloried in it, too) from old John Northrup, saddle and harness maker, of whom I have heard it told by one that saw it that he died on his sixtieth birthday in the battle of Gettysburg, from some twenty bullet wounds received while carrying the colors of his regiment, and that his last words were: “Don't let the Johnnies get the flag!”

I feel it to be my painful duty to relate that Madame Nell, when remonstrated with by her family upon the plebeian nature of the match she was about to make, flew into a violent rage and said she would gladly trade a baker's dozen of her eminently high and wellborn Knickerbocker ancestors for “that grand old saddler.” The Van Zandt crest is a lion rampant gardant, and shortly after the wedding an aunt, who had declined to be present, received a spirited sketch of the family beast, leaning upon a musket in the position of parade rest, carrying a flag in his mouth and bearing upon his lordly back a monstrous saddle, the motto in the surrounding heraldic belt being, “Don't let the Johnnies get the flag!” This cheerful device was accompanied by a very deferential and affectionate note from the bride, asking her aunt if she did not think it a pretty way of combining the Northrup family (saddle) tree with the crest of the Van Zandts, or if she thought the “dear old lion” would appear to better advantage under a saddle that would conceal him entirely from the gaze of the vulgar herd.