John Franklin Swift, Robert Greathouse: A Story of the Nevada Silver Mines (1870)

 

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

 

A Story of the Nevada Silver Mines.

 

 

 

By JOHN FRANKLIN SWIFT,

 

AUTHOR OF

"Going to Jericho; or, Sketches of Travel in Spain and the East."

 

NEW YORK:

Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square.

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.

MDCCCLXX

 

 

 

 

Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1870, by

GEORGE W. CARLETON.

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District

of New York.

 

 

Stereotyped at

THE WOMEN'S PRINTING HOUSE.

Eighth Street and Avenue A,

Now York.

 

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER.                                                                                                     PAGE.

I.                      — The Silver Mines                                                                 7

II.                     — Edmond Graham, Wife, and Daughter                              17

III.                   — Bob Greathouse, the Murderer                                           30

IV.                   — The Cosmodental Hotel                                                      41

V.                    — The Colony of Castaways                                                     53

VI.                   — Enoch Bloodstone "strikes" it in the Graham Mine            63

VII.                  — Dame Partlet's Revenge                                                       81

VIII.                 — What constitutes Manhood                                                 93

IX.                   — High Life                                                                            106

X.                     — The Bosh Silver-Mining Company                                     118

XI.                   — The great Chain-shot Ball                                                  130

XII.                  — The Fairy Island                                                                   150

XIII.                 — The Blackmail Suit                                                              161

XIV.                 — Going to the Mines                                                             170

XV.                  — Woman's Rights                                                                  176

XVI.                 — Strawberry Station                                                               183

XVII.               — The Carson Grade                                                               187

XVIII.              — Snakeweed and Bittergin, Counsellors-at-Law                     195

XIX.                 — Education forms the Common Mind                                  208

XX.                  — Jack Gowdy buys Mining Shares                                          219

XXI.                 — The two Mortgages                                                              227

XXII.                — Mr. Napoleon B. Spelter                                                     235

XXIII.              — No. 16, American Eagle Hotel                                            242

XXIV.              — The Washoe Bar                                                                 248

XXV.               — The Patriotism of the Washoe Bar                                      253

XXVI.              — What the Washoe Bar thinks of itself                                 264

XXVII.             — A Declaration of Love                                                         277

vi         CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER.                                                                                                     PAGE.

XXVIII.            — An Engagement to Marry                                                    290

XXIX.              — Joy in No. 16, American Eagle Hotel                                  300

XXX.                — An old Lover is sent about his Business                               313

XXXI.              — The Wedding Day is fixed                                                   323

XXXII.             — More Trouble at the Mine                                                  329

XXXIII.            — How Mines are managed in Washoe                                   334

XXXIV.            — Charley Hunter obtains Employment                                 344

XXXV.             — The Mother and her Offspring                                           349

XXXVI.            — Mr. Graham visits the Fourth Level                                    354

XXXVII.          — Mr. Graham has gone upon a Journey                                359

XXXVIII.         — The Wedding is Postponed                                                 363

XXXIX.            — Mrs. Graham goes upon a Journey                                      372

XL.                  — A Friend comes to see Helen                                               384

XLI.                 — A Worthy member of the Washoe Bar                               394

XLII.                — Helen Graham Consults a Lawyer                                       404

XLIII.               — Conscience an Obstacle to Justice                                        410

XLIV.              — The Obstacle Removed                                                       419

XLV.                — The King's Writ runneth not in the Graham Mine                        426

XLVI.              — Miss Graham is in very great Trouble                                 432

XLVII.             — Joseph Bowers, of Calumet Creek                                       437

XLVIII.            — Practice at the Washoe Bar                                                 443

XLIX.               — The Sky is more Overcast                                                    450

L.                     — The Clouds begin to lift                                                       455

LI.                    — Jack Gowdy's Logic                                                               462

LII.                  — A Private writ of Habeas Corpus                                         473

LIII.                 — Six Hours ahead of Time                                                     490

LIV.                 — Ten Hours ahead of Time                                                   499

LV.                  — Serving the writ of Habeas Corpus                                      505

LVI.                 — The Washoe Bar airs its Eloquence                                     512

LVII.                — Napoleon B. Spelter on the War-Path                                522

LVIII.              — Home Again                                                                        534

LIX.                 — Another engagement to Marry                                           542

LX.                  — Jack Gowdy hands in his checks                                           552

LXI.                 — Exeunt Omnes                                                                     561

 

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

 

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CHAPTER I.

THE SILVER MINES.

            A MORE uninviting situation for the residence of human beings than the sides of Mount Davidson can scarcely be imagined. Standing in the midst of a country so destitute of moisture and fructifying soil that its very valleys are deserts, the mountain rears its black crest to a height of ten thousand feet above the sea level, and so looks down in grim majesty upon a scene of Plutonian desolation that lies on every side. Yet within two thousand feet of the summit of this barren rock stands the town of Virginia City, containing a population of twenty thousand souls, amongst whom exist a class of people as familiar with the refinements and usages of that which we in modern times are in the habit of calling good society, as can be found at least in any town of the same size in America.

            The secret of such a city being situated in such a place lies not upon the surface of the earth, but is hidden from view. Along the whole face of the mountain from the north to the south, extending many miles in length and passing directly under the town, lies the vein of silver ore known as the Comstock Lode.

            For miles along this vein, at intervals of a few hundred yards apart, the frail sheds covering the hoisting works, the smoking chimney, and the jet of steam, the great pile of white and gray stone and debris, mark the shafts of the various companies working the mine.

            A wide thoroughfare, extending in a straight line from Virginia to Gold Hill, passes precisely in front of all the hoist-

8          ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

ing works, and indicates pretty accurately the location of the argentiferous vein.

            Along this road immense wagons, like huge houses on wheels, laden with bags of ore or many tons of loose silver-bearing rock, and drawn by troops of horses or mules, toil ponderously up and down, passing from the mine's mouth to distant crushing-mills, which may be seen spitting and fuming for miles and miles down the mountain-sides in every direction. These moving piles of rock are the only indications to the passing stranger of what is being done by busy thousands beneath his feet ; for as he walks he passes over the heads of miners who are delving hundreds of yards below him in the earth, which has long since been honeycombed by their increasing industry.

            The town of Virginia extends along this thoroughfare, and up and down the mountain, on either side of it, each street being a sort of terrace. At the time our story opens the splendid stone and brick warehouses, stores and hotels, which now ornament the town, were not in existence. Half the shops were still of wood, and tents and shanties covered the mountain-side in motley and promiscuous confusion.

            In the commencement of cities in the mines of the great west it has always occurred that men's vices have been provided for as one of their earliest wants, and always in advance of anything like material comfort. Substantial grog-shops spring up long before the foundation of a dwelling-house can be laid.

            San Francisco in her early days possessed splendid gambling-saloons before decent inns could be finished, and for years the comfort and even luxury of these hells rendered them the general lounging-place of men who would have blushed at the bare thought of participating in the disreputable amusement or calling of the gambler.

            That which has existed and been suppressed by law in San Francisco sprang at once into active life and vigor in Virginia City, where as yet no law had been decreed.

            The gambling-saloon, with its rich lights, comfortable seats, and tempting-music, was the finest room and in the most central part of the town. But small and uncomfortable as were the houses, and dirty and unpaved as were the streets, Virginia City had already become an ambitious town, and her citizens talked gloriously of the future. Thousands of hopeful adventurers tramped up and down the one uneven street, discussing plans for the working of veins of ore already discovered, or

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       9

hopefully dreaming of lucky strikes to be made by fresh searchers. Already houses were being built of a more comfortable character, to which families were to be brought from California, or more distant parts.

            In November, 1861, there stood a small two-story wooden house in the main street of Virginia. The lower or street-floor was used as a shop, while the upper part was occupied by a gentleman as lodgings.

            It was after nightfall late in the dying year when we begin our story, and the evenings had grown steadily in length until now they were very long.

            But this did not appear to be in the least to the disadvantage of the gambling-house across the street, for its blazing oil lamps, with bright plated reflectors, sent the light gleaming and flashing far out into the night, lighting up not only the gay saloon and the street in front, but darting its rays even through the upper-story windows of the little house opposite.

            The cheerful light did not invade the chamber alone ; for with it came the click of the gambler's money, and the monotonous call of the croupiers as they invited the anxious crowd to join in the game, or announced its fickle results.

            The front room into which the light from the gambling-house so boldly entered was plain in appearance, its walls being covered with cotton cloth, but furnished comfortably though rudely. A half-dozen strong arm-chairs of painted wood, each with a loose leather cushion, were ranged in an orderly manner against the wall. In the centre of the room stood a strong cedar table, covered with green cloth. Upon this were placed writing materials, and the ink-marks upon the wooden margin showed that this article of furniture was kept in constant use. Two lighted candles stood upon the table; and a man who was the sole occupant of the room sat in an office chair reading one of two letters which he had apparently just received ; for the envelope freshly torn was lying on the uncarpeted floor, while the other lay unopened before him. His head was large and handsome, his hair but slightly sprinkled with gray. His well-arched eyebrows were of the same color, and had already taken on that long, shaggy, and uneven look, that more conclusively than anything else in the features of a man stamps the fact that the fulness of maturity has been already reached. The clear blue eye, the aquiline nose and full double chin, shaven scrupulously clean, all contributed to the very pleasing and benevolent face of a gentleman of fifty years. His figure was in keeping with

10        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

his head. Commanding in height, and dressed with a degree of neatness that only the utmost care could maintain, the most causal glance was enough to reveal in Mr. Edmond Graham, for such was his name, all the outward indications of a thoroughly-educated and well-bred gentleman. He had finished reading his letters, and was in the act of refolding the last one, when the door opened, and a man, small in stature, of about five-and-thirty years of age, entered the room.

            "Ah ! is that you Bloodstone," said Mr. Graham. "I am glad you have come. I was about to go out in search of you. Take a chair."

            All this was said in a tone of kindness and interest unmistakably sincere.

            The man addressed as Bloodstone took the proffered chair and sat down awkwardly, and without removing his hat.           

            " The express has just arrived," said the new comer in a sharp and disagreeable voice. " Did you get any letters from the bay ?"

            "Yes," replied Mr. Graham, "I have, and it is about them that I wanted to see you. I have received one from my wife, and also one from Helen. Mrs. Graham insists more strongly than ever upon being with me, and will hear no objection ; and now Helen has taken up the same side. She writes that her mother's health is being impaired by anxiety for my safety; that no discomfort or hardship which they may have to undergo in this wild place will be half as trying to her as the days and nights silent in fretting about our forced separation. Hitherto Helen, like an obedient daughter as she is, has been content to take my judgment as her own, and to urge my view of the case upon her mother ; but now she asks me, for her mother's sake, to let her differ, and to urge by all means to let them come to me. They say they are ready to undergo anything—to be the servant of servants— anything, so that they may be by my side. What shall I do, Bloodstone?"

            This Mr. Graham said with evident emotion, and stopping as if quite overcome by his feelings.

            " Do," answered the other, but with no perceptible letting down of the sharp voice, "why, I'd let them come. I've always said so from the first. This is a good enough place for anybody, and certainly if it's good enough for you, it's good enough for your wife and daughter."

            The high-pitched, sharp voice of Bloodstone seemed more unfitted to the subject and to the tone of Mr. Graham's mind

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       11

than even his flippant mode of treating it. This Bloodstone saw, rather than understood, by the change in the other's countenance, and he came to a momentary pause, as if abashed. Then he finished in a dogged tone, —

            "It's a good enough country for me, anyhow."

            While Bloodstone was muttering over his last remark, Mr. Graham had risen from his chair and walked to the window, as if attracted by something occurring in the street.

            "Look here, Bloodstone," he cried, "and tell me if this is a pleasant place to bring a wife and daughter to live in."

            Bloodstone approached the window and looked. It was indeed a startling scene that met their eyes. The gambling-house which a few minutes before had been quietly pursuing its regular course of business, with no sound except the musical notes of the orchestra, the clink of the dropping coin, or the croupier's monotonous cry, was now the scene of a fearful tulmult. Shouts of rage or fear from a hundred throats were mingled with the sharp crack of the pistol and the smashing of furniture. From the doors tumbled in tulmultuous confusion a mob of frightened lookers-on, while the windows were being forced out by the blows of others who eagerly sought safety by jumping into the street, often carrying the sash and glass with them in the plunge. Above the heads of the struggling combatants, who still occupied the centre of the saloon, could be seen the waving of various weapons and the descent of blows, while another set of rioters, from the pure spirit of mischief, were seen breaking up the furniture of the house. These were hurling bottles and spittoons with great violence at the lamps, the mirrors, and the ranges of decanters on the shelves and counters. The malicious breakers of lamps, however, proved themselves to be the most effective guardians of the peace, for the saloon was soon in total darkness, and the scene of the tumult once more peaceful. The most desperate man will not fight without at least some semblance of light. Darkness favors retreat, for it withdraws from bravery its reward of glory.

            The two gentlemen returned to their seats at the table, and Mr. Graham broke the silence.

            "I must go to the bay to-morrow. I will see my wife and daughter, and if I can dissuade them from coming to this pandemonium, I will do so ; but if I cannot, and my wife's health depends upon it, then there's no help for the matter ; they must come. When will the new hotel be finished—have you heard ?"

12        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            "Yes," answered the other, " it will be opened in three weeks."

            "What sort of a place would .that be to live in for a time ? "

            " Just the thing ; it is to be conducted by Fogg, a well-known hotel man. And they say everything is to be carried on in first-rate style."

            " Very well," said Mr. Graham, after a silence. " I will be gone about that long. You can speak for rooms for us, to be ready when the house opens. I may as well prepare for it, as they seem determined to come. What news do you bring from the mine ? Do the prospects improve ?"

            " Everything goes on favorably. We have struck some rock of a better character than hitherto ; and Biggs, the assayist, says things look as well as we have any reason to expect."

            Mr. Graham sighed.

            " It is very strange that We do not find the vein. The companies working on each side of us have been hoisting out paying ore for months, while we, who were first upon the ground, and with the privilege of first selection, are still sinking down without reaching the lode. I fear, Bloodstone, that when I do reach the mine I shall be so deeply in debt to you and others, that I shall be ruined in spite of all. I am in danger of being wrecked in sight of port."

            " Oh, no fear !" said Bloodstone, in the same high, harsh key. "While I have any money, we will keep on with the work. As for payment, everybody knows what the Comstock vein is ; when once you strike it you will be out of debt, sir, directly."

            Mr. Graham only shook his head.

            At this moment the floor trembled, and the thin, papered boards of the partition wall shook, as some one was heard coming up the rickety wooden staircase three steps at a time. Directly the door flew open, and the person who had been dealing so recklessly with the staircase burst into the room much out of breath.

            The new-corner was a young man of medium height, with light, curly hair and blue eyes. His dress was the ordinary one of the working-men of the mines, and consisted of a red miner's shirt, worn a la Garibaldi, with dark trousers tucked into the legs of a heavy pair of top-boots. His waist was girthed with a lackered leather belt, sustaining a holster of the same material on the left hip, from which protruded the polished handle of a Coles six-shooter. He walked to the table, and removing his

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       13

hat, bowed a good-evening to the gentlemen ; and then addressing Mr. Graham, said,

            " You told me a few evenings ago, Mr. Graham, that you expected to go the bay this week. It happens to be my turn to drive over in the morning, and I have saved the seat on the box with me, thinking that perhaps you would like to go along."

            "Thank you, Mr. Gowdy ; it was very kind of you to remember me. Pray take a seat," and he drew up a chair by the table.

            Gowdy, the stage driver, for that was his name and occupation, sat down.

            Mr. Graham continued,—

            " You go by Nevada and Grass Valley, of course ?"

            "No, sir. That's just the point I wish to explain. I have left the Mountaineer Stage Company, and have joined the other line. So we go by the Placerville route."

            " Indeed," said Mr. Graham, " that is something new. You know, Jack, that I always go with the Mountaineer line. How did you happen to leave their employment ? "  Jack twirled his hat in his hand for a moment as if in perplexity as to the place to begin, rather than from the want of an answer.

            " Well, sir, you see there were a good many reasons why I quit that line. In the first place, the road by Placerville is a good half hour the shortest road to Sacramento ; and, if you will believe me, that half hour keeps a driver, who has any pride in his business, and has any reputation to maintain, on his metal all the time. Indeed, sir, if he is not wide awake he'll be beaten every day of his life. Well, sir, you know me now well enough to know that I am a man that takes his coach to the end of the road as quick as the next man, or quits his box. Besides, the owners of the line were a mean set of skunks anyhow. That is, most of 'em are. Tom McSweeney, the president, that lives down the bay, minds his own business well enough, and the drivers has no particular cause to complain of him. But his brother Bill acts as a sort of a road-master ; and lately, as the company has been making a good deal of money and a little of it has been dribbling down to him, he has got to thinking that he is really as big a man as his brother. He's getting the big so badly, that there's no living with him at all. I promised him, some time ago, that if he come my way I'd take the starch out of him. So last week a Monday, as I went

14        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

over driving the 'Spread Eagle,' he come down the road in a two-horse buggy, and stopped against the bank for me to turn out for him. Well, sir, I don't turn out for nobody, except according to the regular rules of the road. I know my rights, and I don't turn out for old Abe Lincoln, unless its my place to do it, and then I turn for a John Chinaman if he is coming my way. Well, this time it wasn't my place to turn out ; so I stopped, and waited for him to give the road. He soon saw that it was of no use, so he drove around. If he had gone on it would have been better for him ; but he stopped, and called back to know that driver's name, so he could report him at the office. That was enough for me. I gave the lines to a gentleman that was riding on the box with me, and I walked back to the buggy, and I said to Bill McSweeney, 'Are you the chap that wants to know the name of the gentleman that drives that coach.'

            " He said he was the same.

            " Well, then,' said I, 'his name is Jack Gowdy. Do you think you can remember it till you get home ?'

            " He said he thought he could.

            " Well,' said I, I am afraid you can't. You will get to thinking about your business affairs, and how you are going to invest the heap of money you are making out of these stages, and the name will slip from your mind and you'll forget it. I'll just impress it on your memory a little more forcibly. My name is John Gowdy, but most people call me Jack ; and I drive the ' Spread Eagle' stage. So saying, I reached up and took him by the neck-tie, and, giving him a jerk, pulled him over the fore-wheel of his buggy into the road. He held on to the dash-board till it broke, and then he came to me; and when I got him there, I hammered him till I felt pretty sure that he would know me or my name either to the day of his death. I would have shut up both his eyes, but the road down is bad, and I was afraid he would drive over the bank. Such people are not worth killing, sir. I drove my coach over the road, and then left the company's service; and now I am with the 'Lightning Express' line, Placerville route, and expect my friends to go on riding in the coach that I drive."

            " Well, Jack," said Mr. Graham, with a smile, " I suppose there is no help for it, so put down my name for to-morrow morning, and don't forget to call for me in time."

            Jack rose to go, but Mr. Bloodstone detained him.

            " What was the matter over at the gambling-saloon?" he

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       15

asked. " Just before you came in, there appeared to be a row of some sort."

            " Oh, yes," he answered ; "you saw the fun, did you ?

            "Yes, we saw something of it. What was it about. Were you there?"

            " Was I there ? Well, I should say I was there, to the extent of getting a bullet through my hat," saying this, Jack showed his hat, which did have a clean, round hole through the rim, evidently freshly made. " I was there purely by accident, and had nothing to do with the difficulty," he continued. "The truth is that Bob Greathouse was at the bottom of the whole affair."

            "He that is called Bob Greathouse, the murderer ?" inquired Mr. Graham.

            "Yes, the same. It appears that Bob discovered last night that the game dealt there was not a fair game of cards. They had a way of pulling two cards out of the box together. So Bob went there this evening prepared to put a stop to that sort of thing. He always carries his Derringer pistols, you know, ready cocked in the side pockets of his sack coat, so that he don't have to draw, but fires through the tails of his coat. It spoils his coats, but is a wonderful economy of time. The dealer got wind that something was wrong, and wouldn't play for Bob unless he would sit with his hands on the table—you see, sir, he knew Bob's ways. Bob agreed to that, but the moment he saw the trick played on him, as it was played he grabbed all the money in sight and commenced shooting. You know how quick Bob Greathouse can do that. He is the sprightliest man with a single-barrelled pistol in Washoe Territory. Of course there was an awful rush of the outsiders for the windows and doors. The head dealer tumbled over with a bullet in his shoulder, at the first shot, and two of the tappers were winged before they could get under the table. I took no interest in the skirmish myself, whatever, though Bob is a friend of mine. I didn't see anybody that I was particularly anxious to shoot at, so I flung a few bottles at the lamps, just to restore order, and when it was dark everybody left the place, and I went with them. That's the whole story. I don't think anybody was killed, and it's all over now."

            Here the stage-driver rose to go.

            "All right, Mr. Graham, you'll hear of me before five in the morning. Good-night, gentlemen."

            "Good-night, Jack."

16        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            The door closed, and Mr. Graham and Enoch Bloodstone were left alone.

            " Bloodstone," said Mr. Graham after a short silence, "I have been absent from my family a long time, in the prosecution of this work, and now duty calls me to them. But I scarcely dare to go ; it appears to me that I ought to be here. It is my continued disappointments that appear to enchain me to the spot. It does seem that fortune cannot always prove so cruel towards me. With the best prospects on the Comstock Lode, my claim is almost the only one that has yielded nothing. Can this continue?" He asked this question almost furiously, as if to say, "You shall answer me. I will not be longer denied the secrets of the earth."

            " Mr. Graham," answered the other in his high, harsh key, " I have been your engineer and superintendent for a long time past, and ought to know something of the prospects of the mine. How hard I have worked to gain that knowledge, you know as well as everybody else. The work is being carried on with my capital alone. If I did not see a reasonable prospect of success, would I be likely to risk my own money in the mine? Does it appear probable that I would do so?"

            "True, Bloodstone—you are right, and I ought to have more manhood. But it is the thought of my poor wife and Helen, that breaks me down."

            He sat silent for a time, and then resumed,

            "I will go and bring them back with me. Perhaps they are right, after all ; where I must be, there they ought to be. Attend close to the mine, Bloodstone, while I am gone, and let nothing be overlooked. Your own future, as well as mine, lies in finding the vein. Good-by."

            They shook hands, and Enoch Bloodstone retired from the room.

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       17

 

CHAPTER II.

EDMOND GRAHAM, WIFE, AND DAUGHTER.

            SEVEN years before the period when our story opens, Edmond Graham was still a country gentleman, residing upon an extensive estate in Pennsylvania, that had been in his family from the days of the Quaker founder of the colony. His lands were situated in Chester county, and his mansion was noted as the centre of a bountiful hospitality, that spread its kindly and civilizing influences over a wide district.

            His fellow-citizens had evinced their knowledge of his sterling qualities by the bestowal upon him of more than one local office of trust, and culminating at last in the supreme honor of his representing the sovereignty of his State, by serving one term in the Federal Senate. But these public positions, as is generally the case in our country, resulted more to the honor than to the pecuniary advantage of the gentleman who held them. At the close of his senatorial term, Mr. Graham discovered that which a too close attention to public affairs had long concealed from him, that his private business had been badly, if not dishonestly mismanaged, and that his fortune had been almost entirely ruined. He found that the estates which had descended to him from his father free from debt or charge, were now encumbered with a mortgage to almost their full value, and that even the means of supporting his family in the liberal position to which they were accustomed, were no longer within his reach.

            This was, to a high-spirited man who had up to the age of forty-three years pursued a successful and even brilliant career, a most trying position. But Edmond Graham was at bottom something more than a man of mere gentlemanly tastes and education.  He had been taught from his earliest youth, and it had become a settled conviction, strong as his nature, that a life pursued in any path save that of honor could only result in bitter disappointment ; that all seeming successes obtained by forgetting these principles are but apples of Sodom. To such a man there was but one course to pursue. His debts must

18        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

be paid at all sacrifices; but this was not enough. His family estates, in his judgment, had been received by him from his father with the condition attached to them that they should go to his children as free as he had received them. He must release them from the charges that had been placed upon them by his improvidence or thoughtlessness.

            A second term in the Senate was offered to him. This would have secured to him for several years a competency, but it would not pay his debts, and especially it would not enable him to clear his lands. He must therefore decline a re-election. More, he must withdraw himself from a historical position, from friendly association with the first men of the land; must disconnect his name, already distinguished, from the great national measures that he and his party had undertaken to promote. In other countries Mr. Graham, according to the standard of a different system, might have been taken up and provided for with a place, — the governorship of a province, with a large salary. Even a substantial pension from the treasury at the end of such a career of national service, in England might not have offended public opinion. But in the United States, whether the policy be better or worse, it is a settled rule that the pay during the term of employment shall be deemed a complete discharge of the obligations due from the people to those who serve them ; and, whether the rule be a wise one or not, at least office is always accepted with a full knowledge of this principle.

            Mr. Graham was not long in deliberation. Fortunately his wife was a lady worthy of such a husband. "We must at once break up our establishment at Washington," he said ; "our house in the city must be sold ; we must try to keep the family property, for it is our duty to do so. I hear marvellous accounts of the gold discoveries on the Pacific coast, and they appear in the main to be true. But the payment of our creditors is but one of our duties ; our children must be educated. I will discharge the one obligation, and you shall undertake the other. I will go to the new Eldorado. You shall find some quiet and pleasant educational place, where your support will be as light a tax upon our resources as possible, and with our daughter, wait till a better day comes to us."

            To Mrs. Graham the task of duty was never a difficult task. It was the sole end of her life. A famous statesman of those days, and whose name has come down as a monument of history to our time, once said of this lady,—

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       19

            "In the whole world, there never lived a more beautiful woman or diviner creature than Matilda Graham."

            For such a woman to follow out such a scheme to its completion, was a thing that nothing short of death could prevent. It was part of her nature. It is needless to add, therefore, that no time was lost in carrying out this plan of retrenchment.

            Mrs. Graham and her only daughter, Helen, then a bright child of twelve years old, were speedily settled at Wilmington, in Delaware, a beautiful and retired town, with an enlightened population, and where the limited means at Mr. Graham's command were found sufficient to ensure to his daughter the best opportunities of instruction.

            To recount all the vicissitudes, the bright prospects, and bitter disappointments that fortune imposed upon Mr. Graham during the first five years of his struggles in California, would unnecessarily prolong this story. It is enough to say that the period of the silver discoveries in Washoe found him still ardently at work, but with little benefit as yet reaped from his exertions. The spur of duty acted upon his conscientious nature so as to supply the energy and vigor usually found only in youth, and among the very first of the explorers of the rich but rugged slopes of Mount Davidson he was found delving as hopefully as men thirty years his junior.

            We have already explained the situation of the Comstock Lode. Crossing the face of the mountain from north to south, at a point within fifteen hundred feet from the summit, the vein of silver ore extends in a right line more than five miles in length. It is the custom of the American mines, for the discoverers and first settlers of a mining locality to hold a meeting, and to organize the district, as it is called. At these primitive conventions a code of rules is at once adopted, regulating the mode of taking up and holding mining ground. They limit the extent of each individual holding, and prescribe the amount of work that must be done to prevent a forfeiture of the right. These rules are recorded, and the courts which generally come after treat them in their decisions of mining cases as part of the law of the land.

            The original discoverers of the Comstock Lode chose for themselves a tract of ground fourteen hundred feet in length, extending along the vein, with the right to run back into the hill an indefinite distance. This regulated the amount to be taken by others coming after them, and the ground for many

20        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

miles along the supposed vein was located in lots of fourteen hundred feet frontage each.

            But when that which was then supposed, and which afterwards proved to be the true line of the vein, had all been taken up, other adventurers commenced laying claim to the land in front of the lode, lower down the mountain as well as behind it and higher up, so that in a few months the territory for twenty miles in every direction was covered with claims.

            This was done with the not unreasonable hope that the vein might not follow a true line, but might break off, or change its course to some absolutely different quarter. Mr. Graham, having had the good fortune to be amongst the earlier adventurers, had selected a claim upon the line of the vein between Cedar Hill, a spur of Mount Davidson, near the original point of discovery, and Gold Hill, a point two miles to the south, and where rich discoveries were made almost at the same time.

            The fact that immense deposits of. silver ore were known to exist at points on each side of Mr. Graham's claim rendered it exceedingly probable that a proper development of his ground would reward him with equally rich discoveries.

            Upon the faith of these bright prospects, and very soon after he had commenced work, Mr. Graham had yielded to the entreaty of his wife, and consented to his family joining him at San Francisco.

            They had been separated five years, and Mr. Graham found upon their arrival, that the child of twelve years, with whom he had parted at Wilmington, had grown to be a beautiful girl, just budding into womanhood. .

            The almost universal beauty of American girls is already too well known to require comment. It has been said, to their disparagement, that they are early to fade. This statement can also be safely left to take care of itself. Nothing we could say would alter the facts, whatever they may be, nor would it be likely to influence existing opinions, which at least ought to be based upon something more convincing than any individual testimony. A lady need not be entirely beautiful of face and form, to be very lovable. A full, bright eye, a smiling dimple, or a pouting lip, will often alone redeem a face from homliness, and make a belle of an otherwise unpretending girl.

            But the character of Helen Graham's beauty was so wonderful as to startle and almost amaze one who looked at her for the first time.

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       21

            Though the beauty of American girls is often spoken of as something distinctive and national, we doubt if such be the fact. The collection of varying nationalities in our country has been too numerous to permit that, at least, in young women.

            The beauty of Helen Graham was of a decided English type. Her height was above the medium ; in fact she was tall. Her eyes were, for a perfect blonde, unusual, for they were brown, and very wide apart, with graceful arches above them of the same color. Her chin was plump and oval, and passed to the throat and neck with a sweeping fulness that in time ensured it would be a double one ; but that, at the time of which we write, was still many years in the future. Her mouth was Cupid's own bow itself, which, when she smiled, opened just wide enough to show the tips of three pearly upper-teeth, of matchless perfection. Her neck was long, and her head set gracefully upon her shoulders, which were so sloping as to almost suggest their being too narrow. But it was her hair that most decidedly stamped the peculiar quality of the blonde upon her beauty. It was a rich, golden yellow, growing in unstinted profusion, long, fine, and with a natural wave running through it, that, when the light fell upon it, gave to its color a changeable character to darker or lighter shades. Her hands were smooth and graceful, her fingers regular and tapering. Her feet were not small ; they barely escaped the suspicion of being large ; they were long and narrow, and in perfect proportion with her height. The bearing of Helen was even more beautiful than her face and figure. Her education had been made as perfect as it was possible to do in the best schools of America, and her movements, as well in the presence of strangers as when alone with her own family, were all alike natural, easy, and graceful. The quality of her moral organization we shall not attempt to foreshadow, as the reader will have a full opportunity of studying her character as shown by her own conduct in the course of this story, and can form such conclusions as the facts may warrant.

            The most pleasing circumstance to Mr. Graham, was the fact that his daughter had grown up to be the perfect image of her mother at the same age. Even now, the mother and daughter were so much alike as to be mistaken constantly for sisters. When the fond father looked upon her, he saw his early love reproduced precisely as he had known her twenty years before.

22        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            Any father would have hoped to find his daughter grown up to be a handsome young woman. Mr. Graham had reason to expect at least this result, but when hurrying from the mine to the city, he met her on the steamer's deck, and looked upon the noble, the queenly creature into which his little brown-eyed pet of five years ago had developed, it was with a feeling more nearly akin to alarm than pleasure. What can I do with this splendid being in this wild country ? he mentally asked himself. And then he thought of the uncertainty and doubt that still hung over his prospects. Where should he place her? He had never until that moment realized the fulness of the responsibility resting upon him. Here he was engaged in a doubtful enterprise, in search of the precious metals that might or might not be hidden somewhere in the line of his excavations far down in the earth ; with no friends save those made in the selfishness of trade, with no home other than some great American caravansary, the common home of himself and all the world besides, here was brought to him his only daughter, in appearance a beautiful woman, in years a nursling, a flower.

            But there was no time for reflection. Mr. Graham did the best thing for his family that lay in his power ; mortal could do no more. He settled them in a suite of apartments at the Cosmodental Hotel, trusting as trust he must that the sterling principles he knew so well were part of the nature of the mother, would watch over, protect, and guard the daughter.

            This done, and with many a silent prayer in favor of the loved ones addressed to Him that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and with many misgivings and doubts that would not be put down, the father returned to Virginia City to devote himself more industriously than ever to the early realization of his dream —to ravish from malignant fortune the means of placing his family in the position to which he felt they were entitled.

            We shall not attempt to follow minutely the daily history of the Grahams during the two years that elapsed between the arrival of the mother and daughter from the East, and the period at which we open our story. It was without special incident. To the father it was time devoted to patient, self-imposed toil, made endurable only by the consciousness of duty faithfully performed. The life of the mother and daughter did not differ materially from that led by most families residing in hotels. But where it did differ it was invariably to the credit of their prudence and discretion.

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       23

            Life in hotels in America is a natural and necessary consequence of the imperfect organization of a young community. It prevails more generally in the newer portions of the country, and disappears as society matures. It is seldom willingly adopted, and never save as a choice of evils. It will be seen that the Grahams submitted to this unpleasant mode of existence, understanding its faults, and with a determination to render them as harmless as possible. They kept themselves more than is usual within their own apartments, meeting the other residents in the house, as is the custom, at the table, but seldom elsewhere. They spent but little of their time in the public parlor, receiving such acquaintances or friends as circumstances threw in their way, invariably in their own private saloon. Such a course of conduct, it is true, brought upon them at times the ill-will of such envious or spiteful people as were for any reason more accessible in their habits. But Mrs. Graham always mildly parried the hints and insinuations of the dissatisfied ones by the reminder that her husband was absent. And in the broadest code of hotel life, this could not fail to be admitted as an unanswerably sufficient excuse. Even the original unpopularity brought upon her by what was charged at first as an aristocratic exclusiveness, in a few months passed away under a uniform gentleness of demeanor and decorous and kindly treatment of all, and those who by any chance fell within the charm of her presence went away lauding to the skies the affability and courtesy of the ladies who had become the pride and glory of the hotel. If Mr. Graham found that his prospects at the mine did not improve as time passed away, his burdens were at least not materially increased by the position or conduct of his family.

            Each afternoon, as regularly as the express itself, came two letters to tell the anxious and toiling father of all that had happened in the rooms of the Cosmodental Hotel within the last twenty-four hours. Did they receive no matter how short a visit, it was recorded by two faithful scribes, with the minuteness of a pair of astronomers noting an eclipse, with its hours of commencement and termination, its incidents and its eccentricities set down for the loving eyes of the absent one.

            Generally these daily chronicles of domestic history were so unimportant that the father saw in them only the connecting inspiration that annihilated space and joined their loving hearts, though many leagues apart. The facts recorded

24        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

would be forgotten as soon as read. Sometimes, however, a word or a line would appear that would cause Mr. Graham to start and turn back to read again. This was most likely to occur when a gentleman had called, as some did, though never unless formally introduced by some well-known and considerate friend. Fathers are always more jealous of those who would visit their daughters, than are mothers. Heaven has provided that women shall be the match-makers of the world, and who shall question the wisdom of its providence.

            Towards the end of the year Mr. Graham began to notice the occurrence of a particular name. It appeared oftener than any other one name, and yet not very often at that. None but a father, and a very anxious father, would perhaps have observed the fact at all. But the name was a singular one to Mr. Graham. He was sure that he had never heard it before, and was equally sure that he did not like it. It was Bloodstone. He never saw the name in either of the daily letters without a disagreeable sensation seizing him just for the moment. " Bloodstone," he soliloquized with a shudder, "how can anybody be of this name of Bloodstone ?" More than once he was on the point of writing to Matilda and to Helen to remonstrate with them upon the impropriety of having a person with such a name visit them, or even to speak to them. But a second thought always suggested the obvious injustice, and even the absurdity of objecting to a gentleman confessedly proper in all other respects, simply because he was called by a disagreeable name. Yet he could not escape, reason as he would, the inevitable sensation of horror that would glide along his nerves and creep through his marrow, when he would read the name of the new friend of his family.

            Mr. Graham watched the letters that came to him daily, and weighed and analyzed them as carefully and noted the results as systematically as a meteorologist watches, and weighs, and notes, and analyzes, the action of the elements, one year with another, in working out his problems. He kept lists, and he knew accurately the rate of frequency of the visits of each male acquaintance, and their average duration. And it was not long before he discovered that the visits set opposite the name, Bloodstone, both in frequency and duration, exceeded that of any other name as the number of five is in excess of three.

            About the same time, the letters from Matilda and Helen each separately suggested the same circumstance. They had

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       25

observed the phenomenon, and, it appeared, were no better pleased with it than was the father. This gentleman was well enough, they wrote. He was admitted to be a man of fortune and reputable enough, or at least came so recommended by reputable people. But neither mother nor daughter, and in this as in all things they agreed, could endure the man ; his very presence was disagreeable ; the reason why, they could not explain, unless it was his horrid name. They feared dear father would laugh at them, but Bloodstone was a horrid name, and made the chills run over them, so they wrote. They did not know how to be civil to him, and already feared that they had involuntarily given him cause of offence by their manner, though never intentionally.

            A week or thereabouts elapsed, and the express brought not two, but four letters from the rooms at the Cosmodental. Two were written in the ordinary course of correspondence, and posted at three o'clock. The other two were mere notes, written hastily half an hour later. The horrid Bloodstone had proposed for the hand of Helen. Each writer closed with the same remark, " I always knew there was something bad about that Bloodstone."

            Mr. Graham walked up and down the room like a caged Bengal tiger.

            "So did I," he muttered ; " yes, so did I. How can a man be right when his name is Bloodstone ?"

            The next day came long letters with full details. The man had not proposed by word of mouth. He had declared his passion by means of a letter. The letter proved to be as extraordinary as the name and character of the man were unusual. The writer commenced by admitting that he had observed what he had but too good reason to believe was the evidence of a settled dislike on the part of both the ladies, but especially on the part of Miss Graham, towards himself, but that he loved her nevertheless. That he possessed a liberal fortune, and could if necessary produce evidence of the respectability of his origin and the purity of his life. That feeling that he had not made a favorable impression upon the object of his love, and to relieve her from the disagreeable necessity of personally rejecting him, he had resorted to the plan of addressing her in writing. That he now formally offered her his hand and fortune. But in the belief that at present Miss Graham's mind is prejudiced against him, and that she will decline the proposal, that he will so accept it without an answer on her part. But

26        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

he adds that he will take the liberty of making the offer a continuous one, to be kept open for her acceptance as long as she shall remain living and unmarried. And with the assurance that he shall devote the remainder of his life to overcoming the objections that lie between him and the possession of Miss Graham's hand, he subscribes himself her very obedient servant, Enoch Bloodstone.

            This sketch of the note of proposal, the ladies followed by appealing to Mr. Graham for advice. The deliberation, the defiant, business-like coolness with which the matter was treated, seemed to fill them with a terror that was utterly unexplainable upon any reasonable grounds.

            They appeared to dread some mysterious force quite outside of nature, that the incomprehensible Bloodstone might bring to bear upon Helen, and force her in some manner to marry him.

            "What can he mean ?" they asked.

            "She never shall marry him," cried Matilda.

            "I will die before I will marry him," echoed Helen.

            But each assertion was made feebly, as if to conceal a latent doubt in poor Helen's powers of resistance against the supposed superhuman influence in the control of the fearful Bloodstone.

            For many days the daily letters could speak of nothing but Bloodstone — his name, his proposal and subsequent conduct.

            Yes, that was simple enough. He had not again made his appearance at the apartments of Mrs. Graham, nor did they hear him spoken of as being about the town. Natural delicacy forbade their making any inquiry, and at last they began to suspect that he had left the city. He appeared to have kept the secret of his offer of marriage as closely as Helen and her mother had done, for no hint of the matter was heard to drop from the lips of the most ardent lover of gossip. At last, there being absolutely no new phases to the affair, it gradually dropped out of the letters and ceased to be spoken of.

            In the meantime, Mr. Graham was more and more deeply absorbed in the mine. Things went daily from bad to worse. All the resources in his possession at the time of the commencement of the work, had long since been swallowed up by the insatiable cavern that he was opening in the mountain-side, and for months he had been going on with the work wholly upon credit. Each day the vast ball of debt that he was rolling on before him, became larger and more difficult to move,

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       27

until now it threatened to overwhelm him in irretrievable ruin. It was about this period that he began to observe from time to time, a stranger standing about the doors of the hoisting works, and, at occasions, by the shaft's mouth.

            Then he found the same person politely requesting permission to look at the mine. Mr. Graham, in the integrity of his nature, had no secrets. If he had not found the vein while others all up and down the lode were doing so, it was in his judgment no disgrace, but simply his misfortune. The request was granted without hesitation. These visits were repeated from day to day, and the stranger's face became a familiar one.

            In no long time Mr. Graham found himself almost every morning accidentally meeting and conversing with this stranger, who appeared intelligent enough and especially conversant with mining in all its branches, as well as engineering. Mr. Graham only observed that he did not like the sound of his voice ; it seemed to be always pitched so high as to wholly lack sympathy. The maintaining of so high a key at all times made it disagreeably monotonous.

            One evening, while sitting in his room engaged in working up the sum of his debts, and studying how to put off pay-day a little longer, there came a tap at his door.

            "Come in," said Mr. Graham.

            The door opened, and a gentleman entered. It was the stranger.

            "Ah !" said Mr. Graham, kindly, "I am glad to see you; pray take a chair," at the same time pushing one toward him. "I suppose you have become lonely here among all these rushing, hurrying, digging, money-getters, and have come in to see a familiar face, and to converse half an hour. I am glad you have called. This is a dull place for a stranger, sir, and especially to one who has no interest in the mines."

            The stranger accepted the chair with thanks, and sat down. His conversation, as usual, was intelligent enough, but Mr. Graham again observed the total lack of sympathy in his new acquaintance's voice. It was harsh and discordant. After a few minutes the stranger said, —

            "Mr. Graham, you have been mistaken. I am not here for a social half-hour, as you supposed, but to talk with you about business."

            The other turned and regarded the speaker with polite attention.

28        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            "Yes," continued the stranger, "upon business. Not upon my business entirely, but upon yours."

            This time Mr. Graham's face assumed a look of deep attention.

            "I have been here now for some time, Mr. Graham, looking at the various mines on the Comstock Lode. I have made a thorough examination of them all, from the mines that commence at Cedar Hill, to the other side of Gold Hill, and, sir, I find your mine the most promising of them all. I have heard of your troubles and financial difficulties, and believe you can be brought safely through them all. I am a thorough civil engineer, and understand mining in all its departments, as well as any man in this Territory, I am sure ; besides, I have an independent fortune which I have made in the mines of California. I have come here to-night to place the whole of it at your disposition. I will manage your works and furnish the capital. Will you let me help you ?"

            The words of the stranger were words that again opened to the poor discouraged and ruined gentleman the vision of a paradise that he had dreamed over for years, but from which, of late, stern reality had shut him out. He almost forgot his instinctive dislike to the man's voice.

            "Who makes me this noble offer?" he inquired after a moment's reflection.

            The stranger for the first time hesitated, and his eyes fell. My name is Bloodstone, sir — Enoch Bloodstone.

            At the mention of this name, Mr. Graham almost bounded from his chair, so suddenly did he start. He stood upon his feet a moment holding on to the side of the table, staring all the while at the stranger ; then settling down slowly, he remained in silence for a time, as if recovering from a fatigue. At last he spoke.

            "I have heard your name before. Mr. Bloodstone."

            "I supposed you had, sir," said the other in his harsh, high key.

            Another silence, during which it was evident Mr. Graham was making an effort to be calm.

            "Is this offer contingent in any manner upon the present or future conduct of my daughter ?"

            This was said with a sternness of tone that approached severity.

            "No, Mr. Graham, it is not the least in the world, and if you will allow me I will explain myself more fully. I met your daughter in San Francisco some months ago, and became deeply

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       29

in love with her. That I acknowledge ; how could I do otherwise ? I saw that she did not return my love, nor was she likely to do so. I wrote her the letter which I presume you have seen, and have not approached her in any manner since. Mr. Graham, I still love your daughter, and always shall do so. I told her in my letter I should devote my life to removing her objections to me. It is for that reason, I confess, that I came hither. I make but one condition with you, Mr. Graham ; it is this — let me help you, and be with you. If, when you know me better, you find me to be a man of good character, of sufficient education to be mentally the equal of your daughter, that then you will not object to my seeking to win her. Even then, sir, I ask only that you will not oppose me, or force upon her any other love, to my exclusion."

            The offer was one which did not bind Mr. Graham to much. The complete rejection of Bloodstone, after all was done, was a contingency clearly provided for, should Helen remain obdurate. But it was evident that Mr. Bloodstone entered upon his Jacob-like service with the belief that it was amongst the reasonable probabilities that she might in the end accept him.

            Mr. Graham saw in his heart that this could never be. The man's hard features, his unsympathetic voice, all told plainly that a woman of the delicate and sensitive nature of Helen Graham could never love him. All this Mr. Graham understood at a glance and so he hesitated. How can I, he thought, make use of such a man, upon such terms, when I feel morally convinced it must end in disappointment to him, sooner or later. He could not answer Bloodstone. He was too full of conflicting emotions.

            "Come to me in the morning," at last he said, "and I will give you my answer. I need time to reflect upon your strange, but, I must confess, generous offer."

            The struggle that must go on in the heart of an honest and proud gentleman, when called upon to decide on the one hand between the strict line of duty, leading to inevitable ruin and beggary, not only to himself, but to a beloved family, and, on the other, a slight departure from it, promising wealth and prosperity, is beyond the powers of human description.

            It is certain that Mr. Graham ought to have declined the proposals of Enoch Bloodstone. His heart told him that Helen would never marry that man of her own free choice, and he knew equally well that he would never willingly use his parental authority to cause her to do so. But in the morning, when

30        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

Bloodstone came to Mr. Graham's office, he found him ready to accept the terms offered the night before. How he arrived at that conclusion I must leave to the reader's imagination. He may be able to find a better reason for his conduct than can the author. Enoch Bloodstone, when our story opens, had been both capitalist and engineer of the Graham mine for a twelve-month ; but with apparently no better success than before his arrival. Day and night men were steamed up and down the shaft in great gangs, delving in the rock of Mount Davidson. Month after month passed away, and the furtive silver vein still kept its hiding-place. But the mine of Mr. Bloodstone's pocket held out as did his courage, and so the work went on.

            For a long time Matilda had been pleading to be allowed to come to Virginia, to aid and encourage her husband. Her duty she said, was by his side. This, Mr. Graham had opposed vehemently. His objection had been, so he said, the discomfort of the life they would have to lead. But in truth, at the bottom of it all, was the superintendent. He could not endure that Helen should be where that mysteriously disagreeable person could see her, much less speak to her. But at last Helen wrote that her mother's health was involved in the, matter, and that the visit could no longer be safely put off.

            The reception of this letter and its effect has been recounted in the first chapter.

 

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CHAPTER III.

BOB GREATHOUSE, THE MURDERER.

            IT was a November morning, and the sun had already fallen into the sluggard habits of winter. Long before he arose, John Gowdy's coach had left Virginia far in the distance, and was whirling down the mountain-side, along the narrow grade, by the fuming furnaces of a hundred quartz mills, through the narrow pass of Devil's Gate, past Silver City, and when the drowsy passengers began to open their eyes and look about them, the panting mustangs were tugging at the coach, as it noiselessly floated, rather than rolled, through the sea of white

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       31

dust that, like a great heap of wood-ashes, covers the plains of Carson Valley.

            A two hours' drive before daylight, on a sharp November morning, does not make men communicative. Not till the sun was high above the Humboldt Hills was the silence broken. The first to speak was the driver, who, seeing that though the outside passengers were all awake and looking about them, yet conversation had not commenced, politely introduced them to each other. Mr. Graham, who sat on the seat with the driver, was formally made acquainted with the two gentlemen on the back seat, and they with each other.

            To the reader, who is familiar with the republican customs of the West, no explanation of this will be necessary. All passengers while in the stage-coach are upon a perfect social equality. If there be such a thing as a superior person in the company, that person is unquestionably the driver. The seat by his side is the most comfortable one, and the two behind him follow next in order. These places he generally manages to dispose of to the persons whom he considers to be of the most consequence, and thus finds himself the centre of an intelligent and obliged circle. It might be thought that a position of such power would render stage-drivers supercilious and overbearing towards those who are thrown temporarily into their care. I have not found it so. The newness of the American communities situated upon the Pacific coast, and their distance from the older settlements of the East, have kept back railways, and so given "staging," as it is called, an exceptional extent and importance.

            The dangers attending the position of stage-driver have influenced strongly the characters of the men pursuing this calling. The roads through the mountains would not be deemed practicable in other countries. Most of them would be thought attended with no little risk, even as bridle-paths or mule-routes. They are often mere shelves, cut along the mountain-sides, not wide enough for two carriages to pass each other, with no thought of a curb or railing ; and it is no unusual thing to see the coach thundering along one of these grades as fast as six horses can run, the wheel at all times within from one to four feet of the unprotected edge of a precipice, pitching off abruptly for one, in some instances two, thousand feet in depth.

            But the roads are not the only perils of the California and Washoe stage-driver. He passes constantly through wild tracts of country inhabited alone by hostile tribes of savage Indians.

32        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            Against these, with no succor, save his own sturdy heart and strong arm, aided by his never-laid-aside six-shooter, — for his company is usually made up largely of non-combatants, women and children, or men of peaceful habits, fresh from less perilous fields, —the stage-driver must make his way from station to station, as best he can. To fail, is to perish miserably. He comes in "on time," if he is alive. If he does not report himself, there is nothing to do but to send another driver, and with him another stage-coach and horses and more passengers, for all of them are gone and will never be heard of again.

            Such men as these, when on the box, surrounded by their little company of passengers, are not mere stage-drivers. They are gentlemen, soldiers, chieftains at the head of the cohorts, and the person who forgets or ignores this fact fails to render homage where it justly belongs. Surliness and impertinent familiarity are the two opposite vices into which, ordinarily, persons in similar employment are prone to drift. But these are the vices of menials, and Washoe stage-drivers are not menials. I have seen reserved stage-drivers, that chilled you with cold dignity ; and, on the other hand, I have seen stage-drivers so affable as to at last tire you with their attentions. That, and nothing more. I have never met with an insolent stage-driver, or a stage-driver who did not consider that he held the position, and was expected to behave like a gentleman.

            The names and faces of the passengers on the back seat were not new to Mr. Graham ; but this was the first of anything like an actual acquaintance between them. The gentleman directly behind Mr. Graham proved to be Mr. Marvin Withergreen, of San Francisco, whither he was then journeying. Mr. Graham had long known of this gentleman as president and chief manager of the Pactolus Silver Mine. Of this mine he knew something, from the circumstance that it was adjoining his own, but not upon what was thought to be the line of the Comstock vein. It was one of the later locations, taken up, as we have already mentioned in another chapter, after the main lode was supposed to be covered, and in the hope of finding a break or change in its course.

            Mr. Withergreen was understood to be a wealthy San Francisco capitalist, who only came occasionally to Washoe, to look after his interests, which were not, it was said, confined solely to the Pactolus mine. Mr. Graham had not heard much of him, and that little, if he remembered rightly, was not wholly to his credit. Not that he remembered of any specific charge

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       33

being made against the gentleman, but rather vague hints that he possessed more boldness than principle, or something to that effect.

            The other passenger was introduced to Mr. Graham, by the driver, as Colonel Greathouse ; but the title alone was new to him. For it was no other than Bob Greathouse, of whom the reader will remember to have heard something in the first chapter, where he was the leader in the gambling-house fight therein described. "Bob Greathouse, the murderer," for by that startling title was he known throughout the Territory of Washoe, cannot be understood without a careful description. But of that description he was well worthy, for he faithfully represented, certainly a class, and almost a race of men once plenty, now passing rapidly away. The south-western desperado or border-ruffian will not be known to the next generation, except as a historical character. To this distinction Bob Greathouse had fought his way proudly and defiantly through unnumbered hand-to-hand combats, with equally desperate men, with pistol and with bowie-knife. To the title of "Greathouse, the murderer," he had waded through the blood of twenty, some even whispered thirty, not unworthy foes. Five had he slain, it was said, in California and Oregon alone. The statistics of his prowess in Washoe could not fail of being accurate. It was positively known to be seven during the brief period since the territorial occupation. The aggregate total of blood varied according to the uncertain and shifting data of legendary victories that floated hence from distant Texas.

            It will no doubt be asked, why, when it was positively known that seven men had been slain by him in the very town of his residence, and within a period so recent it happened, that he was still at large and unpunished.

            The answer is that the rule of municipal law had not yet begun. That the community was stronger than any individual member, and could have dealt with these acts in a summary way, is true. Lynch law is powerful, but it is seldom put in force except under excitement. It is only when the community feels itself menaced, that it will rise up and deal with the wrongdoer.

            The men killed in these broils were the associates and fellows of the man-slayer. They were the same class of desperate men, often themselves murderers, for whom the community felt no sympathy. Quiet people, were generally glad to hear of one of them being killed, and only felt sorry that the fight had not been

34        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

productive of more bloody results. Simple theft in a new community is thought to be a more dangerous crime than manslaughter.

            Had Bob Greathouse been detected in the act of stealing a mule or robbing a sluice-box, he would have been hanged by a jury of miners in two hours after detection with as little deliberation as he would have killed a man in a quarrel over a game of cards. But no man in the Territory, not even the Governor, would have been thought less likely to be guilty of such a crime than Bob Greathouse, the murderer. To cheat, to steal, to lie, these were the petty tricks of cowards and sneaks. Gentlemen could not stoop to such acts, and Bob Greathouse was, according to a standard of his own, a gentleman. It was certainly a strange standard that would extend this term to Greathouse, the man of blood, the gambler, whose whole life was a continual defiance of society, its laws and tribunals. But the standard seems only strange when contrasted with the notions of the times outside the circle that created and was governed by it. The south-western desperado does not after all differ very widely from the wandering knight of the fifteenth century. Bob Greathouse was as brave as the best of them. He was equally well skilled in the use of the arms of his time, and quite as prompt to use them. Honor, such as it was, according to his own rude notion, was to be preserved at all hazards. But he had fallen upon an utilitarian age, and he was useless.

            There was a place, though a bad one, in the economy of the fifteenth century, for the knights-errant; and which place it is a growing opinion of our times, they by their faults created for themselves ; but there was no place, or at best a very transient one, in the toiling, money-getting society of Washoe for Bob Greathouse. In the fifteenth century he would have been a soldier of fortune, a Luigi Sforza or a Braccio Fortebraccio, at the head of his free companions making his arm felt on one or the other side of every cause, boldly making war against monarchs, and hewing for himself a seat amongst the thrones of the earth.

            Robert Greathouse was the natural and legitimate production of the system of African Slavery in America. His virtues were the virtues of a dominant and privileged class. His vices were the vices of the master of slaves, of the man educated in the belief that he rightfully held the power of ruling and controlling men as personal chattels—his failure and fall was inevitable when the foundation upon which these notions were based wa drawn from under him, as it was drawn from under him when from any reason he ceased to be the owner of slave property in sufficient amounts to guaranty to him a continuance of the lordly relationship, whether it proceeded from his own poverty or the total destruction of the system under which slaves were held— either cause was sufficient to ruin the individual. For the slave-owner like the slave is generally rendered by education unfit for any other condition than that in which his habits have been created and moulded into form; both are comparatively helpless when withdrawn and placed in a different condition—but, the master is the greatest sufferer, and is usually more helpless than is the slave. The slave at least does not feel disgraced when compelled to labor. With the destruction of slavery, the class of which Robert Greathouse was a type will rapidly disappear. The generation now passing will see—perhaps has already seen—the last of them.

            By nine o'clock the stage-coach was slowly toiling up the Sierra Nevada, and Mr. Graham was too much absorbed in contemplating the scene, to note the conversation that was going on around him.

            The narrow grade, rudely and hastily dug out of the face of the mountain, was just wide enough to hold the stage-coach ; places being prepared at convenient intervals for meeting and passing wagons. Looking up to the right, the eye followed an unbroken line of pine forest, as it mounted higher and higher, till the one of vegetation was passed, and then still mounting till the bold and barren rocks of the summit disappeared in the clouds. Huge boulders lay scattered loosely over the surface of the mountain-face and with such faint hold upon the earth, that it seemed as if a breath of air would alone suffice to detach them and send them rolling and plunging down upon the frail wagon that was jolting along beneath.

            Close to the narrow road immense pine-trees stood like giants breasting the onslaught of the rocks, and Mr. Graham could not help looking first at one and then at the other, as if to make a mental estimate of the opposing forces : could the protecting forest resist the threatened weight, and so let him pass safely on his journey? But he could not but feel that huge as was this line of sentinels, the rocks were so vast that once started on their downward career nothing could stop their irresistible progress but the valley on his left, two thousand feet below, where in fact lay already many a monster that had made the same victorious progress through or over the ranks of skir-

36        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

wishing pines. Down upon these, so abrupt was the mountain side and so narrow the road, Mr. Graham could from his seat on the driver's left have easily pitched a stick or a bit of stone.

            Far off to the left, carpeted with everlasting verdure, through the centre of which its own clear and sparkling river like a silver film could be traced from end to end and set in the pine-clad Sierras as in a dark-green frame, Carson Valley was spread out like a splendid picture of Salvator Rosa lying on its back.

            At last the summit was reached, and the view of the valley and the distant mountains was lost, the road plunging directly into the pine forest.

            An active conversation was going on between Greathouse and the driver, with an occasional word from Mr. Withergreen. Mr. Graham, as we have before mentioned, had never met Greathouse until that morning, and was surprised to observe the quiet and gentle manner of the man, so strongly in contrast with his reputation, and especially with the title of odious distinction which had been added to his name. There was nothing of the nature of bluster about him. Every gesture, every word, seemed to imply a consciousness of a fund of irresistible strength behind, that could not fail of respect from all that were in his presence. And with good ground, for Bob Greathouse was physically as formidable as his name was awe-inspiring. Full six feet and three inches in stature, he was built in perfect proportion, and his long, elastic stride seemed to spurn the earth with the fulness of his power. He was dressed in a gray sack-coat with side pockets. His trowsers were tucked into his high boots, and his head was covered with the immense broad-brimmed hat so universally worn by Southerners of the period. Unlike most travellers in the mountain, he lacked the belt and six-shooter, so much in use. The stigma of murderer had been attached to his name by the public by common consent, but the expression was never used in his presence. Colonel Greathouse he was called by his friends, a title which he had gained on the borders of Texas, while in command of a regiment of rangers. He did not like, as can be easily imagined, the odious distinction that in Washoe had taken its place, and it was not thought to be wholly safe to refer to it within his hearing.

            Withergreen had been conversing freely with him as they came towards the summit, until at last in a burst of familiarity he spoke in some manner of the addition to Greathouse's name.

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       37

            "I have not heard you called colonel before," he said. "but by quite another title."

            Greathouse understood the allusion, and his brow was clouded.

            "I know, sir, what you mean. Some people call me Bob Greathouse, the murderer, but they are sneaks and mean Yankees that do it. Gentlemen give me my title that I have earned in the rangers. But even the Yankees don't call me that to my face."

            This he said fiercely, but not loudly ; the low notes of the human voice are always the most impressive.

            Withergreen turned pale, and offered an apology.

            "It is of no consequence," said Bob. "I do not find fault with you about it. You don't know me, and only speak what you have heard."

            Then he went on in a quiet explanatory tone. "It is true I have killed some men in my life. One time or another I've killed a good many men, and I've been pretty nearly killed myself, not once, but a good many times. I was born a gentleman, and I shall die one, when I do die. But I'm not any more anxious to die just now than any other man. My father was a gentleman before me, but not a poor gentleman, as I am. He had everything that a gentleman wants, without having to stew, and fret, and fight his way along a God-forsaken country, filled with a nest of mean sneaks and Yankees, as this is.  My father lived in Old Virginia. He had land, and horses, and dogs, and niggers, and he had plenty of them, and he had friends. Perhaps it would not be out of place to say that he had cards, for he certainly did have them. The land and niggers he lost on the horses. Then he sold the horses for money, and lost the money on the cards. Then he lost the friends, but whether on the horses or on the cards I never exactly knew."

            This Bob said with a grim smile, and he continued, —

            "The dogs remained true to him—dogs always do—and he took them to Texas, and died as he had lived, a gentleman. He left me his principles of honor and fair dealing, and his arms to enforce them, and nothing else, for he had nothing else to leave. I came out here to try to get an honest living, and that's all I want. I'm no Yankee nor sneak, and so I can't trade, nor cheat, nor lie. I'm not a free nigger, nor poor white trash, but I'm a gentleman, and don't know how to work, and I'm not sure that I'd do it if I did know. I'm not a lawyer nor a doctor, for I was brought up in Texas, where there were no schools.

38        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

Besides, I was wild, and maybe I wouldn't have gone to them, if there had been any. Here is Jack Gowdy's business is an honorable calling, but I can't drive horses. I don't know how. Now, sir, what is there in this country for a gentleman to do ?"

            This he said raising his voice inquiringly, and looking alternately in the face of each of his listeners. No one answered, and he continued as if he did not expect it, —

            "Nothing. There is nothing that he can do except play cards."

            He paused for an instant as if to see whether that simple fact could be controverted, and finding, as he expected, that it was too self-evident to meet with doubt, he went on, —

            "And that's what I do, gentlemen. I play cards for a living. When I lose I pay, and when I win I expect to be paid. It's not my fault if the mean sneaks and Yankees that govern this country won't let the law collect gambling debts. They make the law to suit themselves. It takes care of their interests. You owe one of them for a meal's victuals, a bowie-knife, a pack of cards, or any other necessary article, and see how quick he'll have the sheriff after you, if you don't pay. But they'll let a man play poker with me all night and take my money while I lose, but if I happen to win a dollar, he'll snap his fingers in my face, and I may starve to death for all the good these Yankee courts will do me. Why, sir, when I first came to this country, I was on the South Fork of Feather River. One night I had a bad run of luck playing poker with a fellow of the name of Kentuck, and before morning I lost eighteen hundred dollars, and I did not have a cent to pay it with. Did I repudiate that debt ?"

            Here he again looked inquiringly into the face of each of the listeners, as if seeking for an answer. None came, and he went on, —

            "No, I went to work in Kentuck's creek claim, with the water up to my waist, to work it out at five dollars a day. Was there any Yankee trick about that ? They had a bankrupt law in California then, the same as they have here in Washoe now. And it was just as good for me as it was for the Yankee that made it. I had never done a day's work before in my life, and it was rough, I tell you."

            Here the expression on Bob's face indicated the horror that still remained in his mind, of this early experience. Then he drew a breath of relief.

            "But my luck turned in about a week. We played poker every night, and by that time I won back all I owed Kentuck,

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       39

and then won the claim and set him to work for me. But he did not mind it much ; he was a working-man, and was used to it. I only mention this, gentlemen, to show how these Yankee laws operate. I play cards for a living, and I pay my losses, and to do this I must be paid when I win. I can't quit the business, for I would have to either starve to death, or take to something that a gentleman can't do without disgrace. If the law don't protect me, I must protect myself. I must collect my debts as well as other people. So, gentlemen, when a man plays cards with me, and don't pay me, he must defend himself the best way he can, for I'm not going to be cheated out of it if I can help myself. No man can say that Bob Greathouse ever told him a lie. No man can say that I ever pulled a weapon on him without fair and gentlemanly notice to defend himself.  Now you know Robert Greathouse as well as he knows himself. Jack Gowdy, here, has known me for years, but you gentlemen are strangers to me."

            Jack signified that this, as well as every other part of the statement, was strictly correct, to his own personal knowledge.

            "I leave you at Strawberry," said Greathouse as the coach slowly mounted the western wall of the lake, " for there my journey will be finished."

            A rather pleasant acquaintance had sprung up amongst the passengers, and all expressed themselves regretfully at losing him.

            "I never feel safe," he said, " when I go towards San Francisco. The mountain air is free and agrees with me. I have never been at the bay, and I hope I may never have to go. I dread cities, and feel in quitting mountains like a young squirrel when first he quits his native tree."

            Mr. Withergreen expressed the pleasure it would afford him to see Colonel Greathouse at his apartments in the city. At Strawberry, Bob left his seat. When the stage-coach was ready to start on, Mr. Withergreen said, "Let me give you my card, Colonel Greathouse," taking one from his pocket and handing it to him, "and when you come to San Francisco do not forget to call upon me at the Cosmodental Hotel. I shall be glad to see you."

            Greathouse took the card and viewed it attentively ; it appeared to be something almost new to him, and he turned it over again and again.

            "Am I to keep this ?" he asked.

40        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            " Certainly," replied Mr. Withergreen, " and it will direct you to my place of residence."

            Greathouse put it carefully in his pocket-book, and buttoned his coat over it.

            "Depend upon it, Mr. Withergreen," he said, " when I come to San Francisco you will be the first person I will come to see. But when I do come it will be upon important business, for nothing else will induce me to go to the city. Good-by, sir.

            "Mr. Graham, I will see you when you come back to Virginia."

            "Thank you," he answered, "I shall be glad to see you, Colonel. Good-by."

            "Good-by."

            And the coach rolled down the mountain towards Placerville.

            Mr. Withergreen proved to be an intelligent man, and Mr. Graham was soon conversing with him. Somehow the subject turned upon the Graham mine. Withergreen appeared to be deeply interested in it, and asked many questions. When told that it had never paid anything, he appeared especially attentive.

            "Do you mean to say, Mr. Graham," he asked, " that you have never taken any paying silver ore from your mine ?"

            "Not a pound, sir.'

            "You have operated the mine all this time independently of anything in the shape of earnings ? "

            "Entirely so, Mr. Withergreen ; we have hitherto wholly failed to find the Comstock vein, though we confidently believe that we have it in our ground whenever we shall sink deep enough."

            Mr. Withergreen appeared much surprised, but said nothing more. It was in the night when they reached Folsom, where they took the railway for Sacramento, and in the confusion they separated for the time.

 

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       41

 

CHAPTER IV.

THE COSMODENTAL HOTEL.

            TWENTY-FOUR hours after the arrival of Jack Goudy's stage at Folsom, as detailed in the last chapter, three ladies were sitting in Mrs. Graham's parlor, at the Cosmodental Hotel in San Francisco. Two of them are already known to the reader ; they were Matilda Graham, and Helen, her daughter. These two were sitting by the open window, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Mr. Graham from Sacramento. The third was endeavoring to temper their impatience, and to keep them company. She had dropped in from her own apartments in the same hotel, which were adjoining, and declared that she wanted to see the "Governor," for so she irreverently called him, as badly as either of the others, and that though she had never seen the old "covey," she would stay and get the first kiss if she could.

            She was somewhat the senior of Helen, being at the time of which we write, about two-and-twenty. Her complexion was fair, approaching a blonde, but not quite up to the mark, with bright, sparkling, blue eyes, and a laughing, kissable mouth. Her figure was neither tall nor short, but compact and plump. In fine, Blanch McIver was as perfect a type of a pretty, charming, and lovable woman, as was Helen Graham of a beautiful, graceful, and elegant one.

            "Oh ! isn't it jolly," she cried ; "the Governor is coming home. Here you have been for two years moping in the chimney-corner like a pair of superannuated nuns in a cloister, never stirring out, winter or summer, till poor Helen is getting to be as sallow and bilious as an old maid fed on vinegar and slate-pencils. She begins to look like a ' biled owl.' Won't I make you fly around when the old fellow gets home ?"

            "Blanche," said Helen, reprovingly, " how can you call my dear father such names ?"

            "Well, then, young fellow, if you like it better. But go out you must, now that he has come, if I die for it."

            Just then a carriage drove up to the street door, and all the ladies jumped out of their seats, and rushed into the hall.

42        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            Here Matilda and Helen seeing the usual crowds of people lounging about the corridors and landings, stopped to wait decorously for the arrival of Mr. Graham. Not so Blanche, but, with a musical laugh, she sped along the hall and down the steps at the top of her speed. Half-way down the stairs she met a handsome, middle-aged gentleman, into whose arms she flew at a guess, covering his cheeks with kisses.

            Fortunately it proved to be Mr. Graham, who, taken by surprise, imagined it was his daughter who had made this sudden attack upon him.

            "It's not Helen," she shouted in great glee, " it's only I, Blanche ; have you not heard of me, Blanche McIver ?"

            Mr. Graham had heard of her and corrected his mistake. At the top of the stairs he met Matilda and Helen, and pressed them to his heart. The mother strove hard to conceal her emotion, but long continued struggles against a severe fate, with hope deferred, was beginning to wear upon her, and it was long after they reached the parlor before all of them together could subdue her hysterical sobs and restore her calmness.

            "Oh, Edmund," she said, " you have been away so long —so long."

            Blanche would have left them alone, for with all her wildness of spirit and love of fun, she possessed a pure and delicate nature, that would not permit her to intrude herself upon the family at such a time. But Helen would not let her go till she had been introduced and had got acquainted with her dear father.

            "Oh, papa," she said, " Blanche is the dearest, the sweetest friend I have in the world. Without her true heart I do not know what we should have done during all your dreary, soul-wearying absence. She has been our friend, our counsellor, and our comforter. You must not judge her by her manner, dear father," so she said privately to him. "She is not frivolous, but is as true as truth itself. We all love her dearly, and wish you to love her as much as we do. You will, will you not ?"

            Mr. Graham was sure he would, and as she rose to go, bade her kindly good-night.

            Helen went with her to her own parlor-door, and Mr. Graham, as he looked after them, walking in the hall, with their arms about each other's waists, and saw the commanding height and splendid beauty of his daughter, again felt the old feeling

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       43

of dread coming over him, as to the future of his precious but dangerously beautiful child.

            Mr. Graham had known of Helen's friendship for Miss McIver from its commencement, in common with all the acquaintances formed by his wife and daughter. He now learned all that was necessary to know of her and her family. Her father, Colonel McIver, was an officer in the army, a gentleman of superior education, possessing elegant manners and polished bearing. Mrs. McIver was a lady worthy in all respects of such a union. They had lived in San Francisco since its earliest settlement by the Americans, and consequently from a time when Blanche, their only child, was an infant This young lady had therefore been brought up in the metropolis of the Pacific. The only daughter of such parents, it is needless to say that every opportunity for instruction that money could command, or the country afford, was lavished upon her. These opportunities were not wasted upon Blanche, but were as seed scattered upon a fruitful soil, and at the time when our story commences, she was one of the most thoroughly accomplished young ladies in a city that has no lack of intelligence and refinement

            But the first years of her youth had been spent in San Francisco, at a time when it was growing up, and especially at a period when the male population outnumbered the female. As a consequence, the few ladies of beauty and culture in the young city were more observed and received more attention from the resident citizens than would have occurred under other circumstances. From her earliest youth, the beauty and vivacious temper of little Blanche had attracted the notice of residents of the town, and she became a universal and extraordinary favorite with all classes of people. This constant ovation naturally, in time, had its effect upon Blanche's manner, and at eighteen she was, as might have been expected, an odd mixture of the elegant and polished lady, and the fast, or at times almost flashing girl of the period, either of which characters she played with equal ease, shifting from one to the other at pleasure.

            At about that age she was taken abroad, visiting the principal capitals of Europe, and was presented at most of the foreign courts. It is needless to say that she created a sensation. She spoke most modern languages with perfect familiarity. Her beauty, her wit, and especially her brilliant repartee, to say nothing of a reputation for the possession of a consider- 

44        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

able fortune, made her always the centre of an admiring, if not astonished, circle.

            "La belle Americaine" was the admiration of the salons of Paris, and for more than one winter was a brilliant star in the bright firmament of the Palais des Tuileries, and the envy of many a proud beauty, who was not content to surpass her in conventional rank alone.

            At the time the Grahams took up their residence at the Cosmodental Hotel, Blanche had just returned from Europe. Her father had settled his family in rooms upon the same floor, and adjoining those of Matilda and Helen. It is unnecessary to relate how an acquaintance sprung up between two young girls so situated, and how that ripened into an enduring friendship. It would only have been strange had it not occurred. Mr. Graham soon saw that the fears of Blanche for her mother's health had not been unfounded. Long-continued confinement within doors, that fearful vice of American hotel-life together with constant anxiety, had already made sad inroads on the health of Matilda. But now that was all past and gone. She would return to the mountains of Washoe with him. She would see her idol every day. The mountain air would restore her. She counted the days and the hours that still lay between her and her new home. The hotel at Virginia City, in which rooms had been engaged, was not completed, and three weeks must elapse before they could go. So there was nothing to do but wait, a hard thing for Mr. Graham to do, for his heart was in the mine, and he wanted to be with it.

            But Blanche McIver, who spent more time in the Grahams' apartments than in her own, undertook to make him forget the time. She would tell him all the scandal of the hotel, she said, and that would be enough, if he attended to it, to occupy his mind for three years, if he wanted to stay so long. First she would tell him the history of the people in the house.

            "Come out in the hall," she said, "and I'll commence with a preliminary lesson in geography, history, and biography as a foundation."

            This was a few mornings after Mr. Graham's arrival from Washoe. The apartments next to her father's, she proceed& to inform him, No. 54, were occupied by the Gudgeon family, consisting of Ebenezer Gudgeon and wife, and a grown-up son, rejoicing in the historical name of Vanderbilt. The Gudgeons were originally from a city upon the Atlantic sea-board, where old Gudgeon, failing in some sort of small trade, flanked his

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       45

creditors, and got away to California. Here he had made a fortune, had been to Paris, had lived at the Grand Hotel, driven a Remise carriage in the "Bois de Boulogne," and was now back at his old quarters at the Cosmodental, retrenching for a time, preparatory to a fresh flight abroad.

            The son, Vanderbilt, she assured Mr. Graham, was the most hateful, disagreeable, odious, disgusting flunkey that had ever stared a lady out of countenance. Most people, she said, had wholly failed to make out which of the two was the most hateful and vulgar — the father or the son. For her part, she had no difficulty in deciding that it was the son, for whatever fault Ebenezer Gudgeon, the father, possessed, at least he was not engaged to be married to her, and his son was. It was that disgusting fact that constituted the difference, and decided her opinion. Mr. Graham was amazed at this statement of Blanche.

            "Ah !" she cried, " it's all the doings of that odious old Gudgeon. He is dying to marry his son to some girl with a fortune, so that he will not have him to support, and the gifted youth is as anxious as his father. They have persuaded my father and mother around to their side, and I gave my consent to keep peace in the family. But I'll never marry him. Never !"

            This she said with a vehemence that showed that she was in earnest.

            "You will disobey your father ?" asked Mr. Graham.

            "Oh, bless you, no ; nothing of the sort ; it will never come to that. Something will turn up, I'm sure : It always does. If nothing better, Vanderbilt will break the engagement himself. He will do it, I'm positive, the moment he sees a girl with a penny more money than I have. He will only hold on to his engagement with me till he can find such a girl, and then you will see he will drop me like a hot potato. I am anxious to have you find the vein in your mine, Mr. Graham, so that he will turn his attentions to Helen."

            "Would you get rid of your beau at the expense of your friend ?" said Mr. Graham, laughing.

            "Well, I should be sorry on poor Helen's account , but self-preservation, you know, is the first law of nature. But I give myself no uneasiness, I can tell you. I know the family too well. He will leave me before the wedding day comes around.

            "The next rooms to those of the Gudgeon family," Blanche continued, "are occupied by the famous General Chainshot.

46        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

He has only just came out from Washington to take command of the military division of the coast. The Chainshots are making a great sensation just now. All the world is running after them and trying to get acquainted with them. I have only seen them at the table. They are to give a grand ball soon, and then, if rumor tells the truth, we shall see wonders when that comes off. As you go around the corner, along the other hall, the apartments are mostly occupied by Washoe people — your countrymen, Mr. Graham," and Blanche looked archly at him.

            "Who are they?" inquired Mr. Graham.

            "The floor is quite filling up with them, now that the mines are beginning to pay. They are coming down from the mountains in swarms. The first day they take their rooms, either here or at the Occipolitan, and the afternoon they spend in buying jewelry. Until that is done they fast, for your true Washoe lady never comes to the table without her diamonds. I have known one of them get as thin as a whipping-post while one of her earrings was out being repaired. That hall is filling up with them, and when the gong sounds, and they all start to dinner together, it looks like the sunburst on the Fenian flag. The corner room is occupied now by Mr. Calhoun Whiffet, the lawyer. His partner, Mr. Napoleon B. Spelter, the great leader of the Washoe bar, has the same rooms when he is here. They come down by turns, so as to keep the rooms between them all the time. After all, it must be the lawyers who in the end get all the money. Is it not so, Mr. Graham ?"

            "I fear there is something in what you say," he answered. "It is the old story of the cats and the monkey."

            "Next to Mr. Whiffet's room," continued Blanche, "is that of Mr. and Mrs. Toney Bitters. They went to Washoe first of all and kept a whiskey shop. Then they got a claim on the Comstock. Now they are worth five millions. Oh, but you ought to see her diamonds. Whew !" and Blanche whistled in ecstatic delight at the recollection of the gems. "They have been over to Europe and back already. In knocking about wherever their courier chose to drag them, they somehow learned that rich people lived in castles— 'shattoos' she calls them. So they are going to build a 'shattoo' down on the Carson River. Their architect went over last week to commence the foundation, but I've heard that the Indians have already scalped him ; so they must send another."

            Mr. Graham sighed bitterly. He thought how different

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       47

his fortune had been. He remembered but a little while before, when Bitters, like himself, was in debt and discomfort, almost discouraged and helpless. Now he was in possession of a fortune of five millions !

            "Who lives in the next room ?" he asked abruptly.

            "That is occupied by the great Mr. Marvin Withergreen, the stock-gambler. He is president of the Pactolus Mine."

            "The Pactolus," said Mr. Graham, inquiringly. "The Pactolus ; that is not a rich mine. No discoveries have been made there."

            "Ah ! no, of course not ; that is the great part of his genius, they say. He never wants to find ore in his mines. He prefers them without it. He can make more money with a bad mine than with a good one. Indeed, they say he would have nothing to do with a steady-paying mine. It would afford no field for his special talent, whatever that may be ; but of course you understand those things better than I do, Mr. Graham."

            Mr. Graham feared that he did not ; perhaps that was his misfortune. He knew of but one way to operate mines. That was to dig till the ore was found, and then extract the metal from it.

            "Perhaps so," replied Blanche," but from what I hear about the house, I am afraid you have yet a great deal to learn."

            "Who lives on the other side of the hall, Blanche."

            "Oh, those are my friends."

            "Your friends?"

            "Yes, my friends, and jolly good fellows some of them are too. And some of them are jolly muffs, but you must take them as they come, in this world, you know."

            Seeing Mr. Graham look inquiringly she explained. "Why, I mean the single gentlemen, of course. Those are back rooms, and are always taken by single gentlemen. There is Capt. Plunger, who is the dearest fellow in the world. Oh, you don't know what a good fellow he is. He ogles the ladies if he knows them, and he stares at them in capitally counterfeited admiration if he don't. And he shows us all to the table when our papas don't get home in time, and holds the umbrella over us as we step from the street-cars on a rainy day ; and — and—" Blanche hesitated as if the catalogue of virtues was nearly exhausted— " and he looks like the Emperor Napoleon. Then there is little Dick Nancy comes next ; such a sweet young soul, and without an ounce of brain. He adores the ladies, and is so stupid. He ought to have been a woman, and

48        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

has never forgiven nature for the mistake. He believes unreservedly in the superiority of our sex over his own ; thinks that Xantippe prepared and wrote out the conversations of Socrates in advance, and served them to him with his coffee and roll to commit to memory before he went into the city. As for Napoleon, he knows him to have been a humbug, and has no doubt that when history shall be truthfully written it will turn out that Josephine led the charge at the bridge of Lodi, disguised as a vivandiere. Bless you, Nancy would rather trot along Montgomery street prattling to me and carrying my muff, than be collector of the port of San Francisco. Dear me, what would be the lives of us poor women, but for the Nancys."

            Mr. Graham felt sure that it would be wholly unendurable, and hoped that the supply was quite adequate, and with no disposition to fall off.

            Blanche thanked him for the interest he appeared to take in her sex, as evinced by this remark, and continued, —

            "The room next to Dick Nancy, is occupied by a new comer, a Mr. Henry Stacey, who comes well introduced from Ohio, and is to make his home with us. I am a little afraid of him, he is so good-looking. I fear that he is almost too handsome to be of much force. Still, time will tell. He is a lawyer, and if he does not prove to be too honest — (here Blanche assumed a tone of irony)—he may succeed. I have already introduced him to Helen, who, poor soul, would stay in the house a century without an acquaintance if left to herself. Mr. Stacey is timid at all times—a bad quality for a lawyer—and is especially shy of the ladies. He don't come about our rooms as often as we would really be willing to see him, for his bashful good-sense is at times a wonderful relief after the surfeit of brazen chaff and twaddle that is showered upon us by the fashionable mutton-heads that hang about the hotel. I sometimes think that he admires her, but girls, you know, are always imagining some such thing as that."

            While Blanche was still speaking, a young gentleman of apparently three-and-twenty, came around the corner from the landing-place, and walked hastily along the hall towards them.

            "Speak of the devil," she whispered ; "here he is now. Good-morning, Mr. Stacey ; how do you do ?"

            Mr. Stacey stopped, and with an unwelcome blush suffusing his cheeks, raised his hat.

            "Good-morning, Miss McIver."

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       49

            "This is Mr. Graham, the father of our dear Helen. You must know each other."

            The gentlemen shook hands cordially. The young one stammered something about the pleasure he felt in meeting Miss Graham's father, but it was not very clearly made out. The door of Mr. Graham's apartment had stood open all the time that Blanche was instructing him in the geography and history of the hotel.

            "Come in, Mr. Stacey, and sit down," he said, at the same time taking Blanche's hand and drawing her with him. They walked in and took seats. The ladies were in their bed-rooms, but Matilda, hearing the conversation, came in, and seeing who was present, called Helen. "Good-morning, Mr. Stacey," she said, with a smile, and an easy and graceful inclination.

            Mr. Graham was jealously watching the interview. He had not forgotten the remark Blanche had let fall about his supposed admiration for Helen. He was not more suspicious than are all fathers, or perhaps, even men who are not fathers. This was a man who was addressing his daughter, and that was enough to excite a certain degree of hostility. The first meeting of men in the presence of woman is always a hostile one. As two bulls in a field commence to roar and paw the earth at first sight of each other, so would gentlemen do but for the humanizing influence of civilization. Let them bow and smile as much as they will, in their hearts they hate each other. This is the remains of the old savage still left in us. As young setters, the most civilized of dogs, in their first year carry away and bury in the ground all the bones and old boots and bits of leather they can find, the result of a not-wholly-forgotten instinct of saving against a rainy day, transmitted to them from their wolfish progenitors, and in spite of centuries of skilful training and cross-breeding, so does the male of the human species feel the old savage stir in him at the sight of a man whom he suspects to be looking, with no matter how innocent an admiration, at his women.

            But Mr. Graham, look as sharply as he would, could find no fault with the conduct of either party this time. Helen's manner was simply that of the thoroughly refined and modest lady, who meets a gentleman of good position and breeding. She was kind and even cordial. Mr. Stacey's manner was natural, and therefore difficult to fathom. It was consistent with almost any theory.

            The suspicion that Blanche had let drop, that Mr. Stacey ad-

50        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

mired Helen, had put Mr. Graham on the watch. While he was still thinking of it, a bell-boy came in with a card.

            "Show the gentleman in," said Matilda, after reading the name.

            In another moment the door again opened, and a fashionably-dressed young gentleman entered the room. He was about twenty-five years old, of good carriage, and saving that his face was shaved in such a manner as to leave no beard excepting only a heavy brown moustache, the weight of which pulled it down quite below the chin, together with a long goatee or imperial of the same dull color, imparting to the features a heavy, sinister expression, Vanderbilt Gudgeon would have passed anywhere for a very handsome young gentleman.

            "Voila ma bête noire," whispered Blanche to Helen.

            The young gentleman was introduced to Helen's father, and took a seat, hat in hand. He had called to ask the ladies to take part in a visit to the Cliff House and the Ocean Beach, which was arranged, he said, for the following day. A ship had been wrecked on the shore the day before, and was now being broken up by the surf.  Would Mr. Graham go ? and would the ladies go as well ?

            Mr. Graham, after a moment's consultation, signified that they would be happy to take part in the excursion.

            Mr. Stacey had not been invited, nor, indeed, had he been scarcely so much as spoken to by the young gentleman, who having finished his visit was on the point of leaving.

            Turning to Blanche as if he had just thought of it, he said, — " Oh, of course you'll go."

            "Of course I won't go," she answered sharply.

            "Blanche," cried Helen, "you must go. I would not have promised had I not expected you to be of the party."

            All the Grahams joined in the prayer to the young lady ; but no, she would not go a step.

            Helen at last turned to Mr. Vanderbilt Gudgeon, who all the while had been an apparently indifferent listener to the conversation.

            "This is a new turn to the affair, Mr. Gudgeon. If Blanche will not go, you must allow me to withdraw my acceptance of the invitation."

            He turned almost fiercely towards Blanche.

            "Why will you not go, Miss ?" he demanded harshly.

            "I don't like the company," she answered with a pouting look. ." I have not been consulted, and I don't like it"

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       51

            "To whom do you object ?"

            "I don't object to anybody. My cavalier has not been invited, and I won't go without him."

            "Your cavalier I who is he ? I thought I was your cavalier. I ought to be, I am sure, if I am to be your husband."

            "Perhaps you ought to be. I shall not dispute that with you ; but you are not, or at least not yet."

            "Whom do you wish to have invited?"

            "I wish to have Mr. Stacey invited."

            "Mr. Stacey !"

            All eyes were turned upon the poor young gentleman, who blushed to the roots of his hair.

            "Why, I did invite him," at last grumbled Mr. Vanderbilt Gudgeon, his brown moustache dropping so low as to resemble a brace of sardines, too long caught, "or at least I intended to do so."

            "Oh! did you ?" cried Blanche, with affected gayety of manner, "I am so glad. Then you will go, dear Mr. Stacey. Oh you must go."

            Vanderbilt now began to draw the ends of his moustache into his mouth, and to bite them.

            Mr. Stacey really was thankful for the invitation, but business engagements—it was—it was motion day in court, and he did not see how he could leave town.

            Blanche stopped him in the middle of his apology.

            "There, there, that's enough of that sort of gammon ; if you won't go, then I won't, and then Helen won't. So you see you'll break up the party. Come along, then, and don't tell me your stories about court days, when we all know you haven't had a brief in the country." This was cutting so very close to the truth, that Blanche felt the delicacy of the ground, and added, "for of course how could you, when you have only been here so short a time ? Now, that matter is settled," she went on, without waiting to hear either his acceptance or his refusal, "let us sit down and see what Vanderbilt has to tell us that is new. Come, Vanderbilt, 'squat.' We all know that you are not in such a hurry as you pretend to be. Tell us all the scandal." Addressing the others, she continued, "The finest trait in my intended husband's character is his thorough knowledge of the going scandal. He has the faculty of being always posted up to the latest moment. That's why I love him so dearly ; isn't it Vandy ?" she said, catching one of his moustaches, and pulling it down almost to his waist. "If ever I marry you, it

52        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

will be for that lovable quality alone. Come, now, go on. I have not seen my father since breakfast. Has the Governor done anything disgraceful in the mean time ?" Turning to the others, she continued without stopping, "If he has picked a pocket, depend upon it Vanderbilt can tell you from whom, where it occurred ; if he got a watch, the number, and maker's name ; if a purse, what it contained ; while if I am the daughter of a handkerchief-purloiner, he will tell you whether the ill gotten 'wiper' was of silk, linen, cotton, hemp, sea-grass, hair-cloth, jute or shoddy, whether plain or figured, and the private history from the great-grandfather downwards of the pawn-broker from whom the article was traced."

            "Oh ! Blanche," said Mr. Gudgeon, laughingly, for he evidently felt flattered by what he thought was a highly-colored statement of his intellectual powers and capabilities, "how can you go on so, making game of a fellow."

            But Blanche paused only to take breath.

            "Tell me about that rich Washoe lady in No. 106, that you had reason to suspect of a design to elope with the head waiter. Have they gone ?"

            While this question was being asked, Mr. Vanderbilt Gudgeon sat down, evidently treating the matter as serious, and willing to avail himself of so fine an opportunity to show his wonderful powers.

            "No," he answered, looking about at each of the company in turn, and drawing down his moustache till his shirt-front was almost covered, "but it will happen before three days, or I am no judge. I saw him in her parlor yesterday afternoon, pretending to brush the furniture ; but I am not to be imposed upon in that way," he added in a confidential tone, slowly stroking his moustache and imperial. "You will see that room empty before the week is gone." He paused a moment to watch the effect upon the listeners. "But it will not be the only empty room on that side of the hall. No. 109 will want a new occupant before long."

            "What is the trouble there ?" inquired Blanche, to continue the young man in his story.

            "That is the room of Mr. Solomon Comet, president of the Gold Dust and Bullion Bank. He can't keep up his style of living a month longer. Here he has the best rooms in the house ; besides he has his place at Livermore's Pass, and his cottage at Calistoga. His wife has two carriages, and they do say that he keeps thirteen horses. I can't speak positively just yet about

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       53

the horses ; but after next week I'll know, for I am going to watch for a chance and get into his stables when his groom is away."

            "Ah !" cried Blanche, "that will be so nice. Do it. Can you be surprised that I fell in love with my Vandy, Mr. Graham, when he is so bright and so full of enterprise ? There is nothing that Vanderbilt cannot do."

            This she said with a tone of irony, perceptible to all but Mr. Gudgeon, who was too much engaged in stroking his moustache and looking in the mirror across the room, to heed anything so intangible as sarcasm.

            "Come, now, let us go," she continued, rising; "I am sure our friends are tired of us."

            They all protested ; but Blanche would not hear of their staying longer, but dragged the gentlemen away.

            "Good-by ; remember to-morrow and the Ocean Beach," and the door closed upon them.

 

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CHAPTER V.

THE COLONY OF CASTAWAYS.

            MR. VANDERBILT GUDGEON had arranged for his party to leave the Cosmodental Hotel at twelve o'clock ; so at half-past eleven the ladies began to collect in the hotel-parlor, while the gentlemen walked up and down in the halls. Vanderbilt was himself there among the first, and taking the arm of Captain Plunger, at once began to tell him the particulars of the latest scandal. It appeared that the wife of the Rev. Mr. Lambkin, of the Evangelical Society of Reformed and Regenerated Sinners, and who for more than ten years had borne an unexceptional character, turned out to be the great-granddaughter of a man who was strongly suspected of being an early associate of Gibbs, the pirate.

            Captain Plunger, who took no interest in such things, but who was an inveterate and untiring seller of mining shares, and never lost a chance to drive a trade, made a dozen ineffectual attempts to get to the end of the story.

            54        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

            "Oh, hang Gibbs, the pirate!" he said, at last, becoming impatient.

            "That's just the thing, captain, he was hanged ; and that's what makes it so unpleasant for poor Mrs. Lambkin to have the thing come out. You see, the great-grandmother of Mrs. Lambkin —"

            Here Captain Plunger caught sight of Mr. Graham, who was just entering the parlor with his wife and daughter ; and whisking Vanderbilt around with a jerk, broke off the thread of his story.

            "I say, Vandy, by George, did you ever see anything like that Miss Graham ; she is the prettiest woman in the world."

            It was seldom that Helen entered the public parlor, and her striking beauty caused a great sensation in the halls and corridors. The gentlemen involuntarily stopped walking up and down, and all gazed at her in admiration.

            "What a pity you are engaged to be married, Vandy," said the captain ; " there's a woman worth a man's while. You could have her, could you not ?"

            "Have her ! I should say I could have her for the asking. Why, she has been as good as flung at my head already. I go there whenever I want to, and you ought to see how polite they are."

            "Well, what's the trouble ? Won't Blanche McIver let you off?"

            "No ; she would not consent to breaking our engagement. She loves me too much for that. But I could manage her; that's not the difficulty."

            "Then what is it ? Governor poor ?"

            Vanderbilt pulled his long moustache, and hinted that that was about the way of it.

            "The fact is," said Vanderbilt, " he has been going down in that Graham mine, till he is I don't know how many hundred feet in the earth ; but I'm pretty sure he is pretty nearly at the bottom of it, and what is worse, he is correspondingly deep in the books of his creditors ; but no pay rock."

            Again he stroked his beautiful long imperial, and made the points of his moustache meet under his chin.

            "All of that may be," said the captain, "but the Comstock vein certainly runs through his ground, and he must strike it sooner or later ; and when he does, he will pay his debts with the first week's crushing."

            "Yes," said the other, doubtingly, "but while the grass

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       55

grows the horse dies. Suppose he bursts up and is sold out—lock, stock, and barrel—before he strikes it."

            "Well, suppose he does ; you still have the handsomest woman in America ; and if report speaks the truth, the sweetest and the best."

            "Yes, and the bankrupt father and invalid mother on my hands. No, I thank you, not any for me. I want to go back to Paris. It takes coin to live there. Do you hear me? No, Blanche has a clear hundred thousand. Besides, old Graham is still going on with his diggings and may strike it any day ; and when he does I shall hear of it as soon as anybody. I live on the same floor, and can always drop down on her any minute."

            At this moment a stout, heavy-built, well-dressed gentleman of fifty years of age, with an air of extreme and thorough respectability, came down the stairs.

            " Ah ! there's my dad," said Vanderbilt ; " I must go and see him and get some coin, for I haven't got a cent," and he walked towards the gentleman we have just described.

            The two were soon engaged in earnest conversation, only a part of which we shall record.

            "You do well, Vandy," said the father, " to take her out a little and to pay her some attention ; but be very careful. Graham has now got down, they say, seven hundred feet in his mine, and no silver as yet. That sort of thing can't go on long ; the next three months will tell the story. If he should strike it, Helen will be incomparably the best match you can make. You know to a dollar what Blanche has. It can neither be made more nor less. But if Graham should find the lode, he has so managed his affairs by keeping the whole thing in his own hands, he will be the richest man in America. Don't go too fast, but hold yourself in readiness to act promptly at any time."

            Vanderbilt expressed his appreciation of the wonderful foresight and wisdom of his honored parent ; asked for and obtained an extra supply of money, as a matter of urgent necessity considering the business in hand, and returned to the parlor where all were now waiting in readiness to depart. The company had received several additions since the day before. First there was a double rockaway. In this Mrs. Graham and Helen were seated on the back seat, while Blanche sat in front with Vanderbilt Gudgeon, who drove. Then came a second rockaway, driven by Captain Plunger. In this rode Mr. Graham and Mrs. McIver on the back seat, while Mr. Stacey rode

56        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

on the front seat with Captain Plunger. The rear was brought up by Colonel McIver in a single buggy, with a certain Mr. Bowles, a faithful and close friend of Vanderbilt's, whom he had brought along with the secret idea of having some one to take Blanche partially off his hands while he should pay court to Helen.

            They reached the beach, and drove up and down for an hour. This done, they stopped, and part of the company got out for a run on foot. Vanderbilt wished to stay with the young ladies, but he was driving and must take the carriage on to the sheds. So only the two young ladies remained, accompanied by Mr. Stacey, Mr. Bowles, and Blanche's father. The others drove on to the house, where they would wait till the young people could have their romp. Mr. Vanderbilt Gudgeon and Captain Plunger would be down upon the beach almost as soon as the others, so they said, and then they trotted away up the hill. Blanche was delighted beyond measure ; she had seen all along Vanderbilt's game of trying to flirt with Helen, though that young lady had never so much as suspected it. Blanche, as will be seen, cared nothing for the gentleman to whom she was engaged to be married, and even wanted to get rid of him. But she loved her friend too dearly to put him upon her, even had such a thing been possible. She, therefore, only thought of the pleasure she could obtain and enjoy in thwarting his plans. She was resolved to prevent him from being with Helen. To do this she was willing to undergo the annoyance of even having him with herself, if it could not be accomplished otherwise. So she led the way along the beach as rapidly as she could walk, the others following. She jumped over the stones, she climbed the banks, and splashed through the wet sand when she came to it, regardless of everything save the one intent to place as great a distance as possible between herself and Vanderbilt Gudgeon. The others kept along pretty well, except her father, Colonel McIver, for after a few minutes, she looked around and found him far behind. So stop she must — there was no help for it.

            "Dad was always so slow," she cried in her disappointment.

            At that instant her eye fell upon a huge rock in the sea to the left, that projected many feet above the sea-level. It was at a considerable distance out from shore, but it was ebb tide, and at that moment the sea had receded with one of those long swells peculiar to the Pacific, the result of a vast sweep of water

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       57

rolling in from away almost at the antipodes. In an instant she was shouting, —

            "Follow me, all who are not cowards," and scampering off across the now bare beach towards the rock.

            The others had no time to think, nor at the moment did it look dangerous, for the whole distance was almost dry, and instantly all four were following the mad-cab girl at top of speed. The attempt to get upon it was successful, and before the return wave came all, except Colonel McIver, who was still far behind, were safely mounted upon the rock. But their feat proved to have been not without some danger ; for, but an instant after, and while the anxious father was still shouting to them to come back, the returning wave rolled in upon the shore, roaring like another Niagara, and burst upon the sea side of the now island with a noise like thunder. In an instant the beach over which they had just passed was filled up deep enough to float a ship.

            "Whew !" whistled Blanche, comprehending the situation in an instant. "Are not we in for it? This is an all night's job, or I'm a Dutchman."

            But the affair was simply one of detention and nothing more ; they were in a place of safety. The great height of the rock forbade the idea of danger from the returning tide, although the flood was now beginning to make.

            For a few moments the frightened party stood waiting in the hope of a recession of the water, like that during which they had reached the rock. But it very soon became obvious that such would not occur again. In the meantime they saw Vanderbilt Gudgeon and Captain Plunger, who had left the carriages and the rest of the company at the hotel, and were on the way to join the young ladies, running at the top of their speed along the beach. It was now become certain, that while there was no danger, it was inevitable that they must remain on the rock, either till the turn of the tide, or till they could be taken off in some other manner. Blanche was literally in ecstacies of delight at the success of her mad feat. She ran up and down the rock shouting, laughing, and gesticulating to the people on the main land.

            "Good-by," she screamed, " we are going to found a new colony. Good-by Vanderbilt; I release you from your engagement ; it's all off. We will receive immigrants in our island and treat them well, but we have no idea of returning to the continent ourselves. Come along here in fifty years, and just

58        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

see what improvements we will have made, and what a fine country we will possess. We will put you all to the blush, with your old-fashioned governments and institutions."  Poor Vanderbilt was greatly chagrined. His pleasure party and all his plans were completely upset. There was the young lady to whom he wished to be attentive, cast away on an island with another gentleman, and one whom he already began to suspect of being a rival. But there was nothing to do but to go about rescuing the young people from their trying position as quickly as possible. The tide would not be low enough for them to escape by walking on shore for nearly twelve hours, and that would be far into the night. Colonel McIver soon settled the matter ; Captain Plunger must take one of the carriages and part of the company, and drive to the city and send out a row-boat to take them off the rock. That could be done in about four hours, and they would consequently be out of their unpleasant predicament before sunset. In the meantime, the father and Mr. Vanderbilt Gudgeon would remain upon the beach, and watch the sea and the rock, to give assistance in case of any accidents. But there was no danger ; the rock was high and solid, the sea calm, and the weather such as is seldom seen, except upon the Pacific ocean. Blanche would have taken her place upon the level at the top, in company with Helen and Mr. Stacey, but she knew that to be precisely what Vanderbilt Gudgeon wished her to do ; so she took a comfortable seat on the shore side facing her father, and kept Mr. Bowles with her. Pretty soon they saw Mr. Graham come down to the beach and take his place with the others ; and now they knew that the carriage had gone to the town, and that relief would come as soon as possible. Soon the first sensation of alarm and anxiety wore off, and the little party of castaways began to look about them, and to enjoy the beauty and the novelty of the situation. Helen and Mr. Stacey were at the top of the rock, and could look off into the great ocean that rolled around them.  Henry Stacey, as he gazed out over this long antarctic swell as it rolled in upon the shore, could not restrain his thoughts, but unconsciously pointing his arm to the west, repeated the words of Benton, whose eloquence was the eloquence of Cicero, and whose pride was the pride of Coriolanus, "There is India ; there is the East." Helen heard the words that had involuntarily escaped from the young man in the burst of his admiration at the grandeur of the scene, and seeing that he

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       59

went no farther with his apostrophe, she spoke, and asked of him, —

            "Do you love the ocean ?"

            "Yes," he said, "but especially this one. There is a grandeur in the Pacific that is not found in other seas. It is its vast expanse, coupled with its beauty of character, I think, that make us love the Pacific. The Atlantic is beautiful, but it is the beauty of the Bengal tiger ; it is a remorseless, cruel beauty, that says come and fondle me and play with me, but beware of my wrath, for I shall tear your flesh and crunch your bones. The Pacific has the beauty of the horse ; you may safely take him for your friend; what he is to-day, so he is tomorrow and for all time. You mount upon his back, and he bears you fleetly upon your journey ; he is strong enough to bear a man, and a child may guide him. Oh, give me the grand, the honest Pacific."

            As he said this, he forgot his timidity for a moment, and stretched his arm over the water. Helen could not conceal a look of admiration, but Henry was not looking towards her, and it escaped his observation. Although Helen and the young gentleman had met many times before, it had always been in company, and generally in the company of persons who took upon themselves the burden of conversation. Under such circumstances, Mr. Stacey had been, as diffident people usually are, content to listen, and without ambition to be heard. She had remembered him as a handsome, well-bred young gentleman that contrasted very favorably with the best of those she had met at the hotel, and who appeared greatly superior to many who were thrown in her way. With Henry Stacey it had been very different. The splendid beauty of Helen, her golden hair that appeared almost like a flood of light, her noble carriage, her graceful and engaging manner had attracted him at the first interview, and he had gone home that very night with his head full of her. He had dreamed of being in Dresden, and seeing the master-pieces of Correggio as they hung against the wall in the Royal Gallery. He would see them first as blessed virgins and Magdalenes, but soon they would, he thought, grow more and more beautiful till they changed ; and Helen Graham looked majestically down upon him from the glowing canvas. Then he would awake and rub his eyes. It had been a dream ; but with the first step came back Correggio's Blessed Virgins and Magdalenes, and now they would in the most absurd manner, do what he would, insist upon step-

60        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

ping down from the wall where they had rested so many hundreds of years, and not content with such pranks, would actually walk deliberately forward and take their place by his side. But their features always insensibly brightened and got more glowing and more beautiful as they approached him. The smile grew sweeter, the golden hair took on a summer tint, till at last it was not the St. Mary Magdalene, nor yet the Blessed Virgin with the divinity Correggio's pencil spreads upon them, but something more divine that stood beside him. It was Helen Graham in all her splendor. This continued till it really gave him no little trouble. For he could not but see, that, situated as he was, a young adventurer, whose hat when upon his head roofed over his entire estate, he could not hope to win a girl whose beauty and whose accomplishments were in the mouths of everybody, and who could have the pick of the land when she chose to mate. No, Helen was not for him ; he must forget her ; but that is always more easily determined upon than done. The moth dearly loves the candle ; and so he flitted about the golden light of Helen's hair, that was to him so dangerous day after day, each evening resolving to move out of the house on the morrow, and at night again dreaming of Correggio's virgins, and of seeing them ignore the habits of well-conducted pictures, getting out of their frames, and doing all sorts of absurd and unreasonable things. He had come upon this excursion half against his will, and wholly against his judgment ; no good could come out of it, but only disappointment and bitter heart-burning. He was especially chagrined at the absurdly disagreeable position they were placed in upon the rock, for he felt that it would only rivet more strongly the chains that love was daily forging about him, all, as he felt sure, to end in disappointment and unavailing regrets. But he felt that the position had not been of his seeking nor even of hers. Helen had not even invited him upon the excursion; it was the work of Blanche McIver. He could not, as a well-bred gentlemen, do less than try to make himself as agreeable as possible until they should be taken off the rock. He sat down by her side, and as there was nothing else to do, they began a conversation. At first it was confined to common-places around them ; the hotel and its inmates, and common friends and acquaintances. Gradually the conversation drifted off to other lands, and other times more agreeable to both. Helen had spent five pleasant years at Wilmington, and to her that was the sunny spot in her life. Henry had not been five years

ROBERT GREATHOUSE.       61

there, but he had been, by chance, as many weeks, and was familiar with all the beauties of the lovely little city, its noble forest, the waters, groves, and walks. Here indeed was a common link of sympathy between them. He knew the forest perfectly; he even took a pencil and a bit of paper from his pocket, and drew on the spot a little sketch of a scene in the park of Wilmington. It showed a noble avenue lined with lofty trees ending upon a beautiful lake. Around this were seats and rustic arbors, one of those spots that strike the eye at once as the place to wander away alone, and then sit by the hour gazing into the waters in silent meditation.

            Helen was in ecstacies at the sight of it ; she remembered the spot, and had a hundred times wandered to it with her mother and sat down, reading some beautiful book or listening to the carolling of the birds in the adjacent trees. The afternoon wore away much faster than any on the island took note of.

            Blanche, from pure love of mischief, left Henry and Helen to themselves, well knowing how much it would annoy Vanderbilt Gudgeon, who sat upon the shore steadily and angrily watching all that took place.

            In front of the spot where Helen and Mr. Stacey sat, were other and larger rocks, that rose a hundred feet or more out of the sea. These were the homes of the sea-lions. Those huge monsters were lying about the rocks, literally in uncountable numbers, while the deep, hollow baying of the old ones, mingled with the sharp yelling of the cubs, awoke the echoes of the hills and vied with the sullen roar of the breakers. At times, these queer beasts would leave their resting-places on the rocks and plunge headlong into the sea, throwing the water in mimic cataracts in every direction. Then they would disappear, but only to come up again at the foot of the rock where our castaways were sitting, and resting their huge fins upon the edge, they would gaze with their dull, watery eyes at the golden-haired girl, as if in mute admiration of her beauty.

            Helen's head-dress, in the climbing of the rocks, had come down in hopeless confusion, and her hair fell in a golden flood over her shoulders.

            Henry hinted gallantly that the sea-lions were attracted by the glare of golden light coming from the land, and thought another sun was rising in the east, to outshine the one now descending in the west.

            But, whatever it was that attracted the great monsters, after

62        ROBERT GREATHOUSE.

a certain time of dreamy gazing, they would let go their hold, as if their curiosity was satisfied, and fall off again into the water, with a splash like the launching of a ship's jolly-boat, and swim lazily away, to make room for others.

            But now the day was rapidly declining.

            The sun set clear in the west, seeming, across the vast expanse of waters, not like a disc, flat and flashing, as he does elsewhere, even in the most splendid sunsets, but like what he is, —a vast globe of molten fire, round and full, so that the very slopes, from centre to edge, could be easily seen and appreciated.

            At this moment, Blanche, who had been keeping watch, shouted that the boat was coming around the point. And there it was, sure enough, driving through the waters as fast as four sturdy oars could urge it.

            Helen and Henry looked at it, and then at each other ; each felt what was in the other's heart, that relief had come almost too soon.

            The boat arrived at the foot of the rock, rounding to the inside where it was safe to embark, and all prepared to descend.

            Henry looked for the little sketch of Wilmington. It was gone. His heart rose in his mouth. Could Helen have kept it ? Or, bitter thought, had it blown into the sea as an unconsidered trifle ? He would have given worlds to know. Had he inquired for it, she must have handed it back to him as something of no moment. To have offered to give it to her, would have been to court a refusal. It would have been to place too much importance upon the trifle.

            They were soon safely in the boat, and in ten minutes were rowed to a protected spot, behind which they were landed, and made their way to the carriages.

            Mr. Graham clasped Helen to his breast, and kissed her.

            "I am glad, my daughter," he said, kindly, " that the accident has been no worse."

            Blanche took time by the forelock, by pretending to give her father a " blowing-up," as she called it, for not keeping up with her, as he ought to have done, like a gallant old governor, and so keeping her out of scrapes.

            Vanderbilt Gudgeon was sulky. He could not be induced to talk, but drove home in almost uninterrupted silence.

            At the hotel they found the rest of the party, who had arrived safely home, but who were still not without some anxiety

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concerning the band of " colonists," as Blanche had called them, upon the rock. But a comfortable dinner soon put all to rights, and the visit to the wrecked ship passed out of the minds of most of the excursionists. But not all. By two of them the day was treasured away among the bright and sunny spots in life's dreary road.

 

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John Franklin Swift, Robert Greathouse: A Story of the Nevada Silver Mines (unexpurgated edition of 1870) -- Part 1 (Title Page; TOC; The Silver Mines; Edmond Graham, Wife, and Daughter; Bob Greathouse, the Murderer; The Cosmodental Hotel; The Colony of Castaways); Part 2 (Enoch Bloodstone "strikes" it in the Graham Mine; Dame Partlet's Revenge; What constitutes Manhood; High Life; The Bosh Silver-Mining Company); Part 3 (The great Chain-shot Ball; The Fairy Island; The Blackmail Suit; Going to the Mines; Woman's Rights); Part 4 (Strawberry Station; The Carson Grade; Snakeweed and Bittergin, Counsellors-at-Law; Education forms the Common Mind; Jack Gowdy buys Mining Shares); Part 5 (The two Mortgages; Mr. Napoleon B. Spelter; No. 16, American Eagle Hotel; The Washoe Bar; The Patriotism of the Washoe Bar); Part 6 (What the Washoe Bar thinks of itself; A Declaration of Love; An Engagement to Marry; Joy in No. 16, American Eagle Hotel; An old Lover is sent about his Business); Part 7 (The Wedding Day is fixed; More Trouble at the Mine; How Mines are managed in Washoe; Charley Hunter obtains Employment; The Mother and her Offspring); Part 8 (Mr. Graham visits the Fourth Level; Mr. Graham has gone upon a Journey; The Wedding is Postponed; Mrs. Graham goes upon a Journey; A Friend comes to see Helen); Part 9 (A Worthy member of the Washoe Bar; Helen Graham Consults a Lawyer; Conscience an Obstacle to Justice; The Obstacle Removed; The King's Writ runneth not in the Graham Mine); Part 10 (Miss Graham is in very great Trouble; Joseph Bowers, of Calumet Creek; Practice at the Washoe Bar; The Sky is more Overcast; The Clouds begin to lift); Part 11 (Jack Gowdy's Logic; A Private writ of Habeas Corpus; Six Hours ahead of Time; Ten Hours ahead of Time; Serving the writ of Habeas Corpus); Part 12 (The Washoe Bar airs its Eloquence; Napoleon B. Spelter on the War-Path; Home Again; Another engagement to Marry; Jack Gowdy hands in his checks; Exeunt Omnes)