A Waif of the Mountains

Firmly clasping her hand, the two hastened down the incline, wondering what it was that caused all the noise and confusion.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PASSING YEARS

THE excitement in New Constantinople was caused by the arrival of Vose Adams, the mail carrier and messenger, with his budget of letters and freight for the Heavenly Bower.

These periodical journeys never occupied less than two weeks, and in the present instance he had been absent several days beyond that period, so that some anxiety was felt for him, since every trip was attended with more or less danger. He was exposed to the peril of storms, snowslides, wild animals and hostile Indians. The elemental disturbances in the Sierras are sometimes of a terrific nature. Twice he had lost a mule, and once both animals went spinning down a precipice for a thousand feet, in an avalanche of snow and were never found again. Vose’s only consolation in the last instance was that it occurred when on his way to Sacramento, while in the former case he saved one of the precious kegs, which he insisted was the means of saving him in turn from perishing in the Arctic temperature.

The shadowy trail wound in and out among the gorges and cañons, beside towering mountain walls, at a dizzying elevation, over ridges above the snow line, across table lands, through forests of pine and cedar and tumultuous mountain torrents, where he took his life in his hands every time he made the venture.

The unerring marksmanship of Vose and his alertness reduced the danger from the fierce grizzly bears and ravening mountain wolves to the minimum, but the red men were an ever present peril. He had served as the target of many a whizzing arrow and stealthy rifle shot, but thus far had emerged with only a few insignificant hurts. He was ready at the stated times to set out on his journey, and appeared indeed to welcome the change in the existence which otherwise became tiresome and monotonous. It mattered not that his friends often intimated that he was starting on his last venture of that nature, for he believed that his “time” had been set and it mattered naught what he did, since it could not be changed.

Vose explained that the cause of his last delay was the old one–Indians. They had pursued and pestered him so persistently that he was compelled to hunt out a new trail, longer and more difficult that the old one, and which came within a hair of landing him into the very camp of his enemies. However, everything had turned out well, and he brought with him the most prized cargo that ever arrived in New Constantinople.

First of all, were the two casks of freight, which had suffered so slight leakage, that Landlord Ortigies complimented the vigilance of the messenger. Then he brought with him fully a hundred letters and newspapers. Each citizen received one, and many had several. In every instance, the grateful recipient paid Vose a dollar for his mail, so that the reward was generous, including as it did a liberal honorarium from the proprietor of the Heavenly Bower.

In addition to the mail and freight, there were a number of articles to which no special reference is needed. In one package, however, every one was deeply interested, and Nellie Dawson more than the others. Unknown to the father, a goodly sum had been entrusted to Adams, with which to purchase such articles as it was believed the child needed. These included material for numerous new dresses of gorgeous pattern, stockings, shoes, slippers, ribbons, hats and even gloves, trinkets and playthings beyond enumeration.

When these were spread out before the little one, she clapped her hands and danced with delight. She had never dreamed of or seen such bewildering wealth, and the miners were repaid a hundred fold, while the grateful parent thanked them for their thoughtful kindness.

With no other person of her sex in the settlement, it would naturally be thought that she lacked in many of the little attentions which only a mother or adult female friend can give, but such was not the case. There was not a man among them all, who had not been taught in the hard school of necessity to become his own tailor and conservator of clothing. Many had natural taste, and had not wholly forgotten the education and training received in the homes of civilization, before they became adventurers and wanderers. A consensus of views, all moved by the same gentle impulse, resulted in Nellie Dawson being clothed in a garb which would hardly have caused criticism in the metropolis of our country. Not only that, but she was abundantly provided against all kinds of weather, and with Vose Adams making his regular trips westward, there was no possibility of her ever knowing the want of thoughtful care.

The education of the little one was never neglected. Enough has been told to show her brightness, and even had not her teacher been inspired by his affection for the little one, the task of imparting knowledge to such an apt pupil must have been a constant pleasure. This work, as we have shown, fell by common consent to the parson, Felix Brush, though his choice at first was not unanimous. Wade Ruggles was so insistent that he should have a part in the work, that he was allowed a trial, but it cannot be said the result of several days’ effort was satisfactory. A stealthy inspection of the blackboard by Budge Isham and the parson disclosed that Ruggles had constructed the alphabet on a system of his own. Some of the letters were reversed, several inverted, while the forms of others prevented any one from identifying them except the teacher himself.

An examination of the pupil developed the same startling originality in Ruggles’s system of orthography, which seemed to be a mixture of the phonetic and the prevailing awkward method. Thus he insisted that “purp” was the right way to spell the name of a young dog, whose correct title was “dorg.” Ruggles was finally persuaded to resign, though he displayed considerable ill feeling and intimated that the movement was inspired by jealousy of his success.

Budge Isham not only refrained from referring to the slip which the parson made in his spelling lesson, but spoke in such high terms of his success with Nellie, that every one conceded the right teacher had been selected, and it would be a misfortune for any one to assume to take the place of the parson.

Not until the final summing up of all accounts, will the full measure of the influence of the little one be known. It was gentle, subtle, almost imperceptible. Wade Ruggles never broke his resolve not to touch liquor. Inasmuch as an appetite nourished for years, cannot be wholly extirpated in a day, he had his moments of intense yearning for stimulants, when the temptation was powerful, but his will was still more so, and the time came when the terrific thirst vanished entirely, though he knew it was simply “asleep” and could be roused into resistless fury by indulgence in a single glass.

The parson had a severer struggle. After holding out for days, he yielded, and by his inordinate dissipation brought back matters to a fair average. Then he set about manfully to retrieve himself. A second time he fell, and then, thank heaven! he gained the mastery. Henceforward he was safe.

Maurice Dawson himself had been an occasional tippler for years, but he felt the influence of example and experienced no trouble in giving up the habit. Several others did the same, while more tried but “fell by the wayside.”

Landlord Ortigies noticed the diminution in his receipts, but, strange as it may sound, down in his heart he was not sorry. Like nine out of ten engaged in his business he was dissatisfied, and like the same nine out of ten, he longed for the chance to take up some other calling which would bring him bread and butter and no accusing pangs of conscience.

Before the coming of Nellie Dawson, brawls and personal encounters often occurred. The walls of the Heavenly Bower contained several pounds of lead. Blood had been shed, and the history of the settlement showed that three persons had died with their boots on, but those stirring days seemed to have departed forever.

Parson Brush did a good deal of thinking. When through with his pupil, he was accustomed to take long walks into the mountains, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed in meditation. It is safe to conclude that Conscience was getting in its work with him.

And so the seasons came and went and the years rolled on. Varick Thomson, an old miner, who had spent years of fruitless toil in the diggings of Australia, lay down and died, and the parson officiated at his funeral. Two other miners grew weary of the poor success in Dead Man’s Gulch and went off on a prospecting tour deeper into the mountains. A year later another prospecting party came upon two skeletons, near a small stream of water, which after careful examination, were pronounced to be those of their former friends, doubtless victims of the ferocity of the red men. Three vagrant miners straggled into New Constantinople one night and were hospitably entertained at the Heavenly Bower. Their appearance was against them, and, when they announced their intention of making their home at Dead Man’s Gulch, the suggestion to them to move on was made in such terms that they acted upon it and were never seen there again. Thus it came about that New Constantinople, instead of increasing in population and making a bid for the chieftaincy among the new towns in the West, was actually shrinking in numbers.

And all this time, Nellie Dawson was growing fast. Her beautiful mind kept pace with the expansion of her body. Her natural grace and perfection of figure would have roused admiration anywhere. Her innocence and goodness were an ever present benison to the rough miners, who had long since learned to check the hasty word, to restrain the rising temper and to crush the wrongful thought in her presence.

After a time, Maurice Dawson took possession of one of the deserted cabins which he fitted up, or rather the community fitted up the principal apartment for the young queen, whose rule was supreme. No one else was permitted to share the building with them, though visitors were constant and Nellie herself continually passed to and fro among her friends.

But those who watched Dawson saw that a change had come over him. Formerly there was a quiet waggery in his nature, much like that of Budge Isham, which led him to enjoy the rough pleasantries of his companions, though he rarely took part in them, except as an inciting cause. One of his greatest pleasures had been to sit in the Heavenly Bower and exchange reminiscences with his friends, but all that came to an end. Night after night passed without his face being seen in the place. Those who called at the cabin were treated hospitably, but he was reserved and moody, and often failed to hear the words addressed to him. It was evident that there was something on his mind, though he showed no disposition to make a confidant of any one.

CHAPTER IX

THE CLOUD OF WAR

“I KNOW the cause of Dawson’s trouble,” remarked Vose Adams, late one night at the Heavenly Bower.

“What is it?” asked Wade Ruggles, while the rest listened intently.

“On my last trip to Sacramento, two months ago, I brought him a thick letter: that’s what is raising the mischief with him.”

“But what was in the letter to make him act so queer?”

“How should I know? do you expect me to open and read all the letters I bring through the mountains?”

“Bein’ as you couldn’t read the big letters the parson has painted on the side of the rock a foot high,” said Al Bidwell sarcastically, “there ain’t much danger of your doin’ that, which the same is lucky for them as gits love letters like myself regular by each mail.”

“Which the same you won’t git any more onless you sling your remarks a little more keerful,” warned the mail carrier.

“And the same being that you can’t read the directions writ onto them, I don’t see how you’re going to help yourself.”

“The postmaster at Sacramento is very obligin’,” was the significant comment of Vose.

Bidwell saw the dangerous ground on which he was treading, and made it safe by a jesting remark and an invitation to Adams and the rest to join him at the bar.

“We was on the subject of Dawson,” remarked Ruggles from his seat, for all had learned long before of the uselessness of inviting him to drink; “and it’s the opinion of Vose, I understand, that it was the letter that has made the change in him.”

“There ain’t any doubt about it,” said Adams; “fur the attack took him right after; I noticed the difference in him the next day. He sets by himself these evenings after the little gal has gone to bed, smoking his pipe, without any light in his shanty, and thinking hard.”

Wade smoked thoughtfully a minute and then remarked:

“I wonder whether it wouldn’t be a good idee to app’int a committee to wait on Dawson and ask him what the blazes is the matter and whether we can’t do nothin’ to make a man of him agin.”

Since Ruggles had become accustomed to act as chairman at the discussions in the Heavenly Bower, he had developed a strong faith in committees.

“That’s a piece of the most onspeakable foolishness that I’ve run aginst since I settled in New Constantinople,” observed the landlord with a contemptuous sniff; “the minute the committee arrove and stated their bus’ness, Dawson would kick ’em out of his shanty and clean across the street, and he’d be lacking in the instincts of a man if he didn’t do that same thing.”

“Mr. Ortigies forgits that I didn’t mean to suggest that he was to be a member of the committee; I meant they should be gentlemen; consequently that bars him out and there wouldn’t be no trouble.”

“I understand your sarcasm, Wade, but your words would leave you off the committee likewise; but may I ask what the members would ask him when they knocked at his door?”

“Any gentleman wouldn’t be at a loss what to say, fur he would only hev to remark sorter careless like that he had observed the man was acting so queer that we was afeard he was troubled with remorse over some crime he’d committed, and about which he had got notice that the officers was lookin’ fur him, but that if he’d trust us and give a description of the officers, so there wouldn’t be any mistake, we’d watch fur ’em up the trail and pick ’em off afore they could profane New Constantinople with their presence.”

This was a prodigious sentence for Wade, and he leaned back and smoked his pipe with considerable self-complacency, but it impressed none of his hearers as he expected. Parson Brush shook his head.

“It isn’t a very wise way of introducing yourself to a man by assuming that he is a fugitive from justice. In the first place, I am sure there is nothing of the kind in the case of Dawson. He has probably heard some news from the East that troubles him.”

“That’s just what I was sayin’,” broke in Ruggles.

“But not of the nature intimated by you.”

“What else can it be?”

“It might be one of a dozen things; I know you are all wrong in your guesses.”

Every eye was fixed upon the parson, for all were anxious to learn at what he was hinting. His face was unusually grave, but he stopped speaking, as if he deemed it indiscreet to say anything more. He noticed the looks and whetted the curiosity by adding:

“I have been so disturbed over the change in Dawson that I called on him last night and had a talk with him.”

“And what did you learn?” asked Budge Isham, the moment Brush showed an inclination to stop talking.

“Well, it was hard work to draw him out, but finally he told me he had received a letter from the East, which made him think he would have to leave us. That isn’t the worst.”

All were breathless, afraid to give utterance to the dread that until then was vague and indistinct in their minds.

“He thinks he must take his daughter Nellie with him.”

“What! Take her away from us? That can never be allowed.”

None felt the anguish of the announcement keener than the man who made it, but he looked calmly into the angry faces and said:

“You forget, my friends, that she is his child and he has the moral and legal right to do what he thinks is best for her.”

“But where are our rights?” demanded Wade Ruggles; “they mustn’t be forgot.”

“We haven’t any,–not a single one. But I am satisfied that one cause of Dawson’s distress of mind is the very question you have asked. He can never cease to be deeply grateful to all of us for what we have done for him and his child. He doesn’t wish to take her away for it will be as painful to her as to us. But friends,” continued the parson, with a sense of right that was creditable to him, “Dawson’s first duty is to his child. She is now twelve years old, quite a large girl and is growing fast. She has never seen girl or woman since she was brought here; she will soon be a young woman; she requires association with others of her own sex; her welfare demands this; her education and proper training can never be obtained in this mining settlement.”

“Eddycation!” exclaimed Vose Adams; “what have you been doing with her all this time? She must be as far along in her studies and eddycation as me and Ruggles.”

“It is to be hoped so,” replied the parson with a smile; “I doubt whether she will meet any one of her age as proficient in book learning as herself, but there remains music, etiquette, and above all, the social customs and accomplishments which can be acquired nowhere except in the abode of civilization. There is none upon whom this blow will fall more heavily than myself, but I have no right to interpose when a man is doing his duty.”

An exploding bomb could not have caused more consternation than the news brought by the parson. Every one felt the truth of his words and respected him for their utterance, but it was like asking them to consent to the blotting of the sun from the heavens.

“I see a way out of it,” finally remarked Wade Ruggles with a brightening face; “we can compermise.”

“In what way?”

“Why, if Dawson feels that he and the gal must go, let him split the difference atween us; he can go and leave her; that will satisfy everybody.”

“It will hardly satisfy him, since the whole question is that of taking her with him. He must be left free to do whatever he chooses.”

The parson looked into the gloomy faces turned toward him.

“Boys, you have all heard the news brought by the last papers. Fort Sumter has been fired on; President Lincoln has called for volunteers; the Southern Confederacy has been declared and civil war has begun. It is the intention of Dawson to offer his services to the cause of the Union.”

“And I shall enlist too,” declared Wade Ruggles, compressing his lips, “but it will be on the other side.”

“I’m with you,” added Budge Isham; “I am from Alabama, and if she secedes, as she is sure to do, I am ready to lay down my life in her defence.”

“Sorry, pards, but that shoves me into the Union army,” remarked Al Bidwell, puffing quietly at his pipe; “we must keep the balance right, but we’ll part friends here and we’ll be friends till we shoulder our muskets. Then we’ll do all we can to kill each other.”

Further discussion disclosed that the citizens of New Constantinople were about equally divided in their allegiance, but all of them were not yet ready to take up arms in support of the cause with which they sympathized. There were eight who announced their intention of making their way to San Francisco, there to find the most available route to the points necessary to reach. It was typical of that stupendous struggle, the greatest of modern times, that four of these recruits were ardent supporters of one cause and four equally eager to risk their lives for the other. They were the warmest of friends and had been for years, willing to face any danger for the sake of the remainder. It would be the same until they parted, and then, as one of them had already expressed it, they would devote every energy to trying to kill one another.

None of the volunteers faltered until Maurice Dawson decided to leave his daughter at the settlement until his return, if so be he should be permitted to return. He knew of no better or safer place for her, nor of any friends to whose care he would more cheerfully commit her, in case it should be his lot to fall on the field of battle.

It had been Parson Brush’s intention to be Dawson’s comrade in his perils, but when the father begged him to stay behind to look after his child he consented. And so the programme, so fraught with momentous consequences, was arranged.

CHAPTER X

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

The four years of stupendous war came to an end. The sun of the Southern Confederacy went down in gloom and defeat behind the hills of Appomattox, never to rise again, and blessed peace brooded over a reunited nation, which shall endure through the coming ages to the end of time.

It was only the faint echoes of the mighty struggle that, faintly reverberating across prairie and mountain, reached the little mining settlement nestling among the solitudes of the Sierras. Vose Adams made more frequent journeys to Sacramento, in order to gather news of the terrific events, which were making history at an appalling rate. Upon his return, the miners gathered round Parson Brush, or some other one with a good voice, who stood up, with every eye centred on him and every ear keyed to the highest point and they listened with breathless interest until the thrilling story was read through to the end.

The same diversity of sentiment that appeared at first continued to the last, but the parson’s earnest words and his insistence that no quarrels should take place among the neighbors prevented any outbreak, though more than once the point was perilously near.

“If your sympathies are with the Union or with the South,” he said impressively, “there is nothing to prevent your taking up arms, but it must be on the battle field and not here.”

And this wise counsel prevailed. Now and then some ardent partisan shouldered his rifle, bade his friends a hasty good-by and hurried away. One by one, they went until the new recruits numbered five. Thus the population of New Constantinople dwindled to about one-half, and retaining its exclusive tastes, permitted no new comers to join them, so that the boom which in its early days was so confidently looked for sank to zero and vanished. In truth it looked as if New Constantinople was doomed to die of dry rot.

Strange news came now and then from the men who had gone to the war. Maurice Dawson wrote often to his daughter Nellie, whose letters, it can well be understood were the bright spots in his life of adventure and danger. She had improved wonderfully under the careful tuition of Parson Brush, who, gaining experience, as he saw the brightness of her mind, found his work of the most pleasant nature conceivable. She displayed a thirst for knowledge and made advances which astonished him. The books needed for her instruction were procured by Vose Adams in Sacramento, and she valued such presents more than anything else. The teacher declared many a time, with a certain pride, that she put him upon his mettle to make clear the abstruse problems with which he wrestled when in college.

“How she will surprise the boys and her father when they come back,” reflected the parson; “it won’t take her much longer to reach the point beyond which I cannot lead her.”

To her friends who remained, the growth and improvement of the girl were astonishing. Probably no one of her sex ever gave nature itself a better chance to show what she can do with a healthy frame, when untrammeled by the fashions and requirements of modern usages. Her lithe, comely figure was perfect. She never knew an hour’s illness. The cheeks had the rose tint of health, the eyes were clear, the teeth perfect and her spirits buoyant. As one of the men expressed it, she was like a burst of sunshine in the settlement.

But Parson Brush was thoughtful. He saw that she was crossing the line into young womanhood, and that her own interests demanded that she should go out into the world of which he had told her so much; that she should meet those of her own sex and learn the mysteries of her own being. The affection of her friends could not make up for this lack. It cost the honest fellow many a pang when he thought of this, but his consolation lay in the inevitable conclusion that nothing could be done until the return of her parent or until his wishes were made known.