Chapter VI: At Prospect Cottage

It was one of the loveliest of all the summer days in the Yosemite when Inez drove up to the hotel in a buggy which had seen a good deal of service and was not like anything Fanny had ever ridden in. But she did not care. She was delighted to see Inez, who appeared at her best on her native heath and received the warm greetings of those who knew her with the grace and dignity of a young queen. Mrs. Prescott was invited to accompany Fanny, but declined, and the two girls set off alone for Prospect Cottage. Inez was very happy.

“I am so glad to have this little bit of you,” she said, giving a squeeze to Fanny’s hand and then dropping it again. “And we will have such a good time to-day all by ourselves. I haven’t much to do. I was up at four o’clock to get my work done, baking and all, and have made a lot of things I think you will like. One is huckleberry pie.”

Fanny had never seen one, but was sure she should like it, and anything else Inez chose to give her.

“It won’t be like the hotel, nor your New York home,” Inez said, “I do everything myself and oh, isn’t it lovely here among the mountains with this pure air which makes me feel so strong as if I should live forever.”

She was very enthusiastic and Fanny, who also felt the invigorating effects of the atmosphere, entered into her enthusiasm and enjoyed everything, from the wild flowers they stopped to gather, to the musical brook, which went singing along in its rocky bed beside the carriage road.

“This is our house,” Inez said at last, pointing to a cottage in a niche of the hills behind some trees which partially hid it from the highway which was below it at a little distance.

An immense dog came out to meet them, frisking about the buggy and barking his welcome.

“That’s Nero. You saw him at the hotel,” Inez said. “I leave him at home to watch the house when I go away. Good Nero, down, down,” she continued, as she alighted from the buggy and the dog sprang upon her, trying to lick her face.

“Please go right in; the door is open. I leave it so, with Nero. I must unharness my pony. I’m my own chore boy as well as maid,” she said to Fanny, who went into the cottage, followed by Nero, who, stretching himself upon the floor, whacked his big tail approvingly, as Fanny looked curiously around the room.

It was a model of neatness and order and showed many touches of a woman’s dainty hand and, what surprised her a little, had in it some articles of furniture more expensive than she expected to find among the mountains. The wide door opened upon a piazza which commanded a magnificent view of the mountains and the valley below. A honeysuckle was trained upon the rustic pillars and a bowl of roses and ferns was standing upon a round table near which were two or three chairs. This was evidently the living place of the family and Fanny sat down in one of the chairs to wait for Inez who soon came in flushed and bright and eager to talk.

“Yes, we sit here a great deal,” she said, in answer to a question from Fanny. “Father likes a piazza; it reminds him of his youth, he says, but he looks so sorry when I ask him about his youth that I don’t often do it, and I know very little of his boyhood. I asked him once if I had any relatives. ‘No’ he said, so short that I have never referred to them again. You must have a great many.”

“Very few,” Fanny said, and Inez continued: “Has your father been dead long?”

There was a moment’s hesitancy before Fanny replied: “Judge Prescott, who died last year, was my step-father, whose name I took when mother married him. She was a Miss Tracy, and my own father was Mr. Mark Hilton. He died in the mines of Montana when I was a baby. I do not remember him.”

“I am so sorry for you,” Inez said. “I wish you could remember him a little. You must resemble him, as you do not look like your mother.”

Fanny drew a long breath, and, with a thought of ’Tina, answered, “I am like one of my grandmothers.”

Slight as was her knowledge of the world Inez’s womanly instinct told her that Fanny did not care to discuss her family and she changed the conversation.

“I am going to get dinner now,” she said. “Would you like to see me? I don’t suppose you ever did a stroke of work in your life?”

“I never have,—more’s the pity,” Fanny said, as she followed Inez to the kitchen and watched her with the greatest interest, offering to help her.

“Not now,” Inez said. “You may wipe the dishes when dinner is over, and then we can have more time to visit.”

Fanny wiped the dishes after the dinner, in which the huckleberry pie had a conspicuous place, and left its marks on her mouth and teeth. When the work was done there was a ramble among the hills, a visit to Anita’s grave, which was covered with flowers and then, as the afternoon began to wane, the two girls sat down upon the piazza and watched the shadows deepening in the valley and the colors changing on the mountains from rosy tints to violet hues, while the sound of the waterfalls in the distance became more distinct as night drew on.

“Isn’t the world beautiful?” Inez said, “and isn’t it a joy to live. And yet I have a presentiment that I shall die young, like mother. She had heart trouble, you know, and I inherit it from her. A great shock of joy or pain might kill me. Then what would father do,—and Tom.”

This was the first time she had mentioned Tom, and after a moment Fanny said affirmatively: “You love Tom?” and into Inez’s eyes there came a bright, happy look as she replied, “I don’t mind telling you that I am going to marry him sometime when he gets a little more ahead and can leave his present business. It was settled last winter. He is a good deal older than I am, but looks younger than he is and I look older. Strangers take me for twenty at least. I have always known Tom and always loved him, I think. I have sometimes fancied that father was not quite pleased. He has never said anything except that Tom was too old for me and that I ought to see more of the world before marrying. Tom is my world. There is a pretty house in Stockton which he is going to buy, when he is able, where we can live in the winter, but we shall come back here in the summer.”

“What is his other name? I’ve never heard. You have always called him Tom,” Fanny said, and Inez replied, “Why, Tom Hardy. Funny you didn’t know, and he is the one who kept Long John from robbing the coach the other day. That is what I was going to tell you. I am so proud of him. The papers are full of his praises. Father says there is not another man in the valley who would dare attack that giant of a fellow. Tom hasn’t been home since, and I’m dying to see him. I have felt nervous every time I have thought of the risk he ran. What if he had been shot!”

Inez’s cheek grew pale as she thought of the danger her lover had escaped, and before she could say any more Fanny exclaimed, “Is that Mr. Hardy _your_ Tom? I know him. He was on the coach with us from Milton to Chinese camp and told us all about it. I’m glad he is your Tom.”

Inez’s confidence with regard to Tom reminded Fanny of Roy, and in a few minutes Inez had heard all about him and the wedding which was to take place during the holidays.

“I am so glad for you. It is nice to be engaged,” Inez said; “Mr. Mason is of course very different from Tom, but I am satisfied with him, and I do hope he will come to-night and father, too. I think they will. I am keeping supper back a little in case they do, as they are always hungry. What is it, Nero?” she added, as the dog sprang up in a listening attitude, and then darted off through the brush towards the highway. “I believe he heard them. Yes, he did,” Inez cried, as a peculiar whistle, loud and clear, sounded in the direction Nero had taken. “That is Tom! He always whistles to let me know he is coming. I hope father is with him. There they are! Hallo, father! Hallo, Tom!” and she was off like the wind to meet the two men coming up the steep path from the road.

One was tall and walked as if he were tired, with his head a little bent. The other was short and slight and walked with a quick, springing step, as if he never knew what fatigue was. He was dressed differently from what he had been in the stage and there was a jaunty air about him generally, but Fanny would have had no trouble in recognizing him as the hero of the hold-up. Inez threw her arms around her father’s neck, kissing him many times; then, with a glance backward to see if Fanny were looking on she put up her lips for Tom to kiss, and holding a hand of each of the men came toward the house, swinging her arms and theirs back and forth like some happy child, while Nero bounded in front and barked his approval.

“Father, this is Miss Prescott, my friend I have told you so much about. She is spending the day with me,” she said, as Fanny came forward to meet them.

“My daughter’s friend is very welcome,” Mr. Rayborne replied, his voice so pleasant and the expression of his face so kind that Fanny was both surprised and fascinated.

She had not expected a guide to appear just as he did, and she let her hand rest in his a moment, while she looked into his eyes, which held her with their peculiar expression. When she first met Inez she had experienced a feeling as of looking at herself in a different guise, and the sensation returned to her in the presence of Inez’s father. Over him, too, there came a strange feeling of interest as he looked at her. She was not at all like Inez. She belonged to an entirely different world, of which he was once a part, years and years ago, it seemed, but which came back to him very vividly with Fanny Prescott standing beside him. He was always gentlemanly, but he seemed to gain a new access of dignity, which both Tom and Inez noticed, as with a few more words of greeting and a bow he left her and walked into the house. It was Tom’s turn now, and Fanny did not wait to be introduced to him.

“I know you already,” she said, “and I am so glad to see you again here, with——”

She glanced at Inez, who blushed and said, “She means here with me. I’ve told her about us. You don’t care!”

“Of course not; why should I?” Tom said, throwing his arm around her.

Disengaging herself from him, Inez said she must see about their supper and left him alone with Fanny. He was very friendly and talkative; asked when she came to the cottage and how she liked the valley and when she expected to leave. Then with a few commonplace remarks he, too, left her and she saw no more of him or Mr. Rayborne until supper was announced. When that was over they all repaired to the piazza, which a full moon was flooding with light. Nothing had as yet been said of Tom’s exploit in Fanny’s presence, but when alone with him in the kitchen Inez had caught his hand and said to him, “You don’t know how proud I was when I heard of your bravery. How did you dare do it? They say it was Long John,—almost twice your size. Wer’n’t you frightened?”

“A little, at first,” Tom replied, releasing himself from her and going out to a bench near the kitchen door where Mr. Rayborne was sitting and where he, too, sat down and began to talk in a low tone.

“He is so modest he does not wish to hear about the hold-up,” Inez thought, and was rather surprised when, after they were seated upon the piazza, Tom said to Fanny, “What of your diamonds? Are they still in the bows of ribbon in your hat?”

“Yes,” Fanny answered, “and I have sewed them in more securely, so I know they cannot drop out, and I don’t believe anyone would think to look for them there. Do you?”

“Hardly,” Tom said. “It’s a unique hiding place; and you leave us to-morrow?”

“Yes,” Fanny answered, “but not in the Milton coach. We are going to Clark’s to stop a few days and visit the big trees. You don’t suppose those dreadful robbers will waylay us on the route, do you? Long John, and little Dick! I shudder when I hear them mentioned. I wish you were going with us.”

“Can’t you go?” Inez asked, as the conversation progressed and Fanny became more and more nervous.

“I would willingly,” Tom replied, “if I had not an engagement, and besides I might not be of any use a second time. My hands would probably go up with the rest and stay up.”

“Nonsense, Tom! You know better. You would tear at them like mad. I wish you’d go. Your engagement will keep.”

“I’m afraid not, and thousands of dollars are involved in it,” Tom replied.

“Oh-h! So much money?” Inez gasped, thinking of the pretty house in Stockton, which Tom would soon be able to buy, if he were getting rich so fast.

“I do not think Miss Prescott need to feel any alarm,” Tom continued. “The road to Clark’s is perfectly safe. There are not as many rocks and trees to hide behind, and then the country is being thoroughly scoured to find the marauders. There is a larger sum offered for their arrest than ever before.”

“I hope they will be caught and hung,” Inez said energetically. “Some people think they live right around us, and know every foot of ground. I never told you, did I, that Mrs. Smithson said one of them was seen in the woods back of our cottage last summer. You and father were gone, and I was awfully scared. Do you believe they live here in the valley? Just think of talking with them and not knowing it!”

“I shouldn’t wonder if you had seen them hundreds of times,” Tom said laughingly, while Mr. Rayborne arose and went into the house saying it was getting chilly and he was tired.

He had taken but little part in the conversation beyond assuring Fanny that she had nothing to fear. The most of the time he had sat apart from the young people, with a look on his face which troubled Inez, who wondered why he was so silent.

“Are you ill, father dear?” she said, following him to the kitchen and putting her hand on his head.

“No, daughter,” he answered; “there’s nothing the matter;—a little tired, that’s all. Go back to your friend.”

“Isn’t she lovely?” Inez asked, still smoothing his hair. “I wish you could see her mother, she is so grand and handsome and proud looking. She wanted you for a guide, and because she could not have you she didn’t go on a single trail. She had heard you were a gentleman and preferred you to some of the rough guides in the valley. I wish you had been here.”

Mr. Rayborne was not particularly interested in Mrs. Prescott. He was more anxious for Inez to leave him and was glad when, with a goodnight kiss, she went back to the piazza and he was alone with his thoughts. He could not account for the feeling which had come upon him, bringing memories of people and events which had but little in common with what he was now. Through the open door came a breath of wind laden with the perfume of flowers from Anita’s grave, and as he inhaled it he thought of the dead leaves of a rose he had gathered long ago and been foolish enough to keep through all the years of change which had come and gone since he hid them away in the first stage of his youthful passion. Leaving the house he went to Anita’s grave and standing there alone with the dark woods in the background and the moonlight falling around him he talked, sometimes to himself and sometimes to the dead at his feet.

“Little Anita,” he whispered, “I wish I were lying beside you with all the past blotted out. And there is more of that past than you ever suspected. I loved you, Anita, and when your dying eyes looked at me I knew what they said and swore I would do your bidding. But a stronger will than mine has controlled me until now when I am trying to break the bands of steel. What is there in that girl’s face and voice and gestures which makes me struggle to be free. Is there a God, and would he help me if I were to ask him? I used to pray in the old church, miles and miles and miles away across a continent, but I fear it was only a form. God wouldn’t have let me fall so far if he ever had my hand in his. If I were to stretch it out now would he take it and help me?”

He put it out as if appealing to someone for aid; then dropped it hopelessly and said, “No, I’ve sinned too deeply for that. If I am helped at all I must do it myself, and I swear it here by Anita’s grave that not a hair of that girl’s head shall be harmed if I can prevent it, and I think I can. It says somewhere, ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you,’ but I guess the one who said it didn’t know Tom Hardy!”

It was late when he re-entered the house. Inez and Fanny had gone to their room and were asleep, but Tom still sat on the piazza, with his feet on the railing and his hands clasped behind his head.

“I knew he’d wait for me,” Mr. Rayborne said, “but I’ve sworn, and I’ll keep my vow, so help me God.”

He did not know that he had prayed and that God was helping him as he went to that midnight interview with Tom Hardy. There was an earnest discussion carried on in low tones lest the sleeping girls should be wakened. Then the discussion became more spirited, and angry words passed on Mr. Rayborne’s side. Tom always kept his temper, but was in deadly earnest and nothing could move him. He had no sentimental feelings, he said, with regard to a white faced, blue eyed girl, whom neither of them had either seen or heard of before, and did not propose to let a fortune slip through his fingers on her account. He had made inquiries and there had seldom been a richer party leaving the valley than was to leave on the morrow. If Mr. Rayborne did not choose to join him he would go alone.

“And if you do,” Mr. Rayborne replied, “by the old Harry I’ll circumvent you if I can, and if I can’t and you succeed I’ll give both of us up to justice and end this accursed life into which I allowed you to lead me.”

Tom laughed and replied, “I have no fear of that. You like your good name and your liberty too well to be willing to spend the rest of your days behind prison walls, an object of greater contempt because you have stood so high in the community, trusted and respected by everyone; and then there is Inez. Would you voluntarily ruin her life with a knowledge of her father’s shame?”

Tom knew what cords to touch to make the man like clay in his hands. For once, however, he had gone too far. The white faced, blue eyed girl, as Tom designated Fanny, was completing the work which Mr. Rayborne had for some time been agitating. She was Inez’s friend. She had been his guest. She trusted him, and she should not be harmed. But how to hinder it was a question which he revolved over and over again in his mind as, after leaving Tom, he sat by his window, suffering all the horrors of remorse, and once burying his face in his hands he cried, “God help me. He heard the thief on the cross; maybe he will hear me who am worse than that thief.”

The early morning was breaking in the east and on the mountains there was a glow of sunrise. Tom was up and Inez, too, busy with breakfast as the stage for Clark’s passed at a comparatively early hour. Mr. Rayborne had not been in bed at all and looked white and tired as he went out to the bench where he made his ablutions. Tom was there, trying to force down a feeling which was warning him of danger. Still he had no idea of giving up his enterprise. It had been planned for days in every particular, and he would not abandon it now. He would rather have Mr. Rayborne with him, if he could, although he was getting a little clumsy and sometimes handicapped his more agile companion with his deliberation. If he would not go, then Tom would go alone,—he was resolved on that,—and said so to Mr. Rayborne when they met by the rude washstand.

He had no fear of being circumvented by his colleague, and bidding him good-bye, kissed Inez, who came to the door just as his conversation with her father ended, and went down the hill whistling “The girl I left behind me,” while Mr. Rayborne looked after him with a feeling of pain and apprehension.

“I have sown the wind and am reaping the whirlwind, and I wish I were dead,” he thought. Then he repeated a name which only the winds heard. “What would _he_ say, and he trusted me so fully. I am glad he don’t know. It would kill him. Nobody knows, but God and Tom. I am glad God knows; it seems as if he would show me some way to stop it.”

Just then Inez came to tell him that breakfast was ready, and bathing his hot face and eyes again in the cold water which trickled in a little stream down from the hills, he put on as cheerful a face as possible and went in to meet Fanny just coming downstairs with something in her smile which made him think again of the withered rose leaves and a summer he would have given much to recall.

“Where is Mr. Hardy?” Fanny asked, as she missed him from the breakfast table.

“He was obliged to go away very early on account of that appointment he told us about. He left a good-bye for you and bade me tell you he might perhaps meet you on the road,” Inez said.

“Oh, I hope he will. I grow more and more nervous about the journey,” Fanny replied, glancing at Mr. Rayborne, who was silent and preoccupied.

His head ached, he said, and finishing his coffee he left the table and the girls were alone.

“He is not himself this morning. He never is when he has one of his hard headaches, and this I guess is worse than usual,” Inez said apologetically. “Tom wanted him to go with him, and I think they had some words about it, for just before he left I heard Tom say ‘I believe you are a coward.’ Queer for father and Tom to quarrel.”

Fanny did not reply except to lament that Tom’s engagement must keep him from going with her.

“Perhaps father will go,” Inez suggested, and going out to the bench where he sat with his head down she said, “Can’t you go with Miss Prescott as far as Clark’s? The ride will do you good.”

Inez could not see how white he grew as he answered, “_I_ go! _I_,—and meet Tom on the road?”

She did not know what he meant, and looked at him in wonder. Suddenly starting and brightening up he exclaimed, “It has come to me at last. _You_ shall go to Clark’s and return on the late stage. If there is not room for you inside you can go on the box with the driver. That’s the best place for you. Keep your eyes out everywhere, and if a bandit attacks you, don’t throw up your hands, but scream in your natural voice.”

Inez could not understand why he was giving her so many directions. She only knew she was delighted to go.

“I cannot be of use like Tom, if anything happened,” she said to Fanny, “but father has told me what to do, and I’m not afraid.”

She hurried through her morning’s work, her father’s dinner was planned, and she was ready some time before the stage was seen in the distance a quarter of a mile away. Mr. Rayborne went with the girls to the road and waited until it drew up. Every inside seat was taken except the one reserved for Fanny. Mrs. Prescott who always looked out for herself, had appropriated a corner seat in the rear of the stage, where she could lean back against the cushion. She had a headache, as usual, and with her veil over her face she looked up enough to greet her daughter, who said, “Inez is going to Clark’s with us. There is not room for her inside, and I am going outside with her.”

Immediately a young man arose and offered his seat to Inez, whose father said in a low tone, “Stick to the box.”

“And I shall stick, too,” Fanny said. “The view is much finer outside, and Inez can tell me the places.”

The two girls were soon seated and the driver was about to start when with a roar Nero came down the hill, jumping at the horses’ heads and then at Inez.

“Here, Nero, here,” Mr. Rayborne called while Inez pleaded for him to go.

“I can bring him back to-night, and he never has a chance to go anywhere,” she said, but her father was firm and the dog followed him rather reluctantly to the house and disappeared in the direction of his kennel, which Tom had built for him.

“Nero is the last one to be there if anything happens. He is so affectionate and demonstrative and sure to mix in the melee that recognition would be inevitable, and I would spare Inez that, if possible,” Mr. Rayborne thought, as he sat down in his silent room, which had never seemed so lonely before. Nor had the past ever crowded upon him so thickly as it did now, filling him with remorse as real as it was bitter. Every leaf in his life was turned with its dark record from which he recoiled with horror. Away back in another world it seemed to him there were bright spots and he saw himself, looked up to and respected and happy, leading what looked to him an ideal life compared to what he was leading now.

“Oh, for those days. Oh, to be young again and innocent,” he said aloud, and his voice sounded so strange that he half started from his chair and looked around to see where it came from. “I don’t like being alone,” he said. “Nero is better than no company. I’ll call him.”

He went to the rear door, and called two or three times, “Nero! Nero!” then whistled, with the same result. Nero neither answered, nor came. He had gone to his kennel and lain down at first, then, as no one was about, he struck off into the woods, looking back occasionally to see if he were watched. Once in the woods and out of sight of the house he started rapidly in the direction of the road, keeping out of it until he saw the stage in the distance. Then he took the road, and in a few minutes was barking his delight at the horses and at Inez on the box. He had often tried to follow his master and Tom, of whom he was very fond, but had always been ordered back. Now, he had succeeded in eluding them, and was out for a holiday, which he enjoyed hugely, sometimes keeping near the stage and again making a detour into the woods and disappearing altogether for a time. When he did not return to the cottage Mr. Rayborne knew where he had gone. There might no harm come of it, and perhaps the dog’s presence would do good, he thought, and as the hours crept on he waited in feverish impatience for the news which he knew would travel fast if there were any news to travel.