Gabriel Conroy

And it was then that his strength suddenly flagged. His senses began to reel. His breath, which had kept pace with the quick beating of his heart, intermitted, hesitated, was lost! Above the advancing thunder of hoofs behind him, he thought he heard a woman's voice. He knew now he was going crazy; he shouted and fell; he rose again and staggered forward a few steps and fell again. It was over now! A sudden sense of some strange, subtle perfume, beating up through the acrid, smarting dust of the plain, that choked his mouth and blinded his eyes, came swooning over him. And then the blessed interposition of unconsciousness and peace.

He struggled back to life again with the word "Philip" in his ears, a throbbing brow, and the sensation of an effort to do something that was required of him. Of all his experience of the last few moments only the perfume remained. He was lying alone in the dry bed of the arroyo; on the bank a horse was standing, and above him bent the dark face and darker eyes of Donna Dolores.

"Try to recover sufficient strength to mount that horse," she said, after a pause.

It was a woman before him. With that innate dread which all masculine nature has of exhibiting physical weakness before a weaker sex, Arthur struggled to rise without the assistance offered by the small hand of his friend. That, however, even at that crucial moment, he so far availed himself of it, as to press it, I fear was the fact.

"You came to my assistance alone?" asked Arthur, as he struggled to his feet.

"Why not? We are equal now, Don Arturo," said Donna Dolores, with a dazzling smile. "I saw you from my window. You were rash – pardon me – foolish! The oldest vaquero never ventures a foot upon these plains. But come; you shall ride with me. There was no time to saddle another horse, and I thought you would not care to let others know of your adventure. Am I right?"

There was a slight dimple of mischief in her cheek, and a quaint sparkle in her dark eye, as she turned her questioning gaze on Arthur. He caught her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips.

"You are wise as you are brave, Donna Dolores."

"We shall see. But at present you must believe that I am right, and do as I say. Mount that horse – I will help you if you are too weak – and – leave a space for me behind you!"

Thus adjured, Arthur leaped into the saddle. If his bones had been broken instead of being bruised, he would still have found strength for that effort. In another instant Donna Dolores' little foot rested on his, and she lightly mounted behind him.

"Home now. Hasten; we will be there before any one will know it," she said, as she threw one arm around his waist, with superb unconsciousness.

Arthur lifted the rein and dropped his heels into the flanks of the horse. In five minutes – the briefest, as it seemed to him, he had ever passed – they were once more within the walls of the Blessed Trinity.

BOOK IV.

DRIFTING

CHAPTER I.

MR. AND MRS. CONROY AT HOME

The manner in which One Horse Gulch received the news of Gabriel Conroy's marriage was characteristic of that frank and outspoken community. Without entering upon the question of his previous shameless flirtation with Mrs. Markle – the baleful extent of which was generally unknown to the camp – the nearer objections were based upon the fact that the bride was a stranger and consequently an object of suspicion, and that Gabriel's sphere of usefulness in a public philanthropic capacity would be seriously impaired and limited. His very brief courtship did not excite any surprise in a climate where the harvest so promptly followed the sowing, and the fact, now generally known, that it was he who saved the woman's life after the breaking of the dam at Black Cañon, was accepted as a sufficient reason for his success in that courtship. It may be remarked here that a certain grim disbelief in feminine coyness obtained at One Horse Gulch. That the conditions of life there were as near the perfect and original condition of mankind as could be found anywhere, and that the hollow shams of society and weak artifices of conventionalism could not exist in that sincere atmosphere, were two beliefs that One Horse Gulch never doubted.

Possibly there was also some little envy of Gabriel's success, an envy not based upon any evidence of his superior courage, skill, or strength, but only of the peculiar "luck," opportunity, or providence, that had enabled him to turn certain qualities very common to One Horse Gulch to such favourable account.

"Toe think," said Jo. Briggs, "thet I was allowin' – only thet very afternoon – to go up that cañon arter game, and didn't go from some derned foolishness or other, and yer's Gabe, hevin' no call to go thar, jest comes along, accidental like, and, dern my skin! but he strikes onto a purty gal and a wife the first lick!"

"Thet's so," responded Barker, "it's all luck. Thar's thet Cy. Dudley, with plenty o' money and wantin' a wife bad, and ez is goin' to Sacramento to-morrow to prospect fur one, and he hez been up and down that cañon time outer mind, and no dam ever said 'break' to him! No, sir! Or take my own case; on'y last week when the Fiddletown coach went over the bank at Dry Creek, wasn't I the fust man thar ez cut the leaders adrift and bruk open the coach-door and helped out the passengers? And wot passengers? Six Chinymen by Jinks – and a Greaser! Thet's my luck."

There were few preliminaries to the marriage. The consent of Olly was easily gained. As an act of aggression and provocation towards Mrs. Markle, nothing could offer greater inducements. The superior gentility of the stranger, the fact of her being a stranger, and the expeditiousness of the courtship coming so hard upon Mrs. Markle's fickleness commended itself to the child's sense of justice and feminine retaliation. For herself, Olly hardly knew if she liked her prospective sister; she was gentle, she was kind, she seemed to love Gabriel – but Olly was often haunted by a vague instinct that Mrs. Markle would have been a better match – and with true feminine inconsistency she hated her the more for it. Possibly she tasted also something of the disappointment of the baffled match-maker in the depths of her childish consciousness.

It may be fairly presumed that the former Mrs. Devarges had confided to no one but her lawyer the secret of her assumption of the character of Grace Conroy. How far or how much more she had confided to that gentleman was known only to himself; he kept her secret, whatever might have been its extent, and received the announcement of her intended marriage to Gabriel with the superior smile of one to whom all things are possible from the unprofessional sex.

"Now that you are about to enter into actual possession," said Mr. Maxwell, quietly buttoning up his pocket again, "I suppose you will not require my services immediately."

It is said, upon what authority I know not, that Madame Devarges blushed slightly, heaved the least possible sigh as she shook her head and said, "I hope not," with an evident sincerity that left her legal adviser in some slight astonishment.

How far her intended husband participated in this confidence I do not know. He was evidently proud of alluding to her in the few brief days of his courtship as the widow of the "great Doctor Devarges," and his knowledge of her former husband to some extent mitigated in the public mind the apparent want of premeditation in the courtship.

"To think of the artfulness of that man," said Sal, confidentially, to Mrs. Markle, "and he a-gettin' up sympathy about his sufferin's at Starvation Camp, and all the while a-carryin' on with the widder of one o' them onfortunets. No wonder that man was queer! Wot you allowed in the innocents o' yer heart was bashfulness was jest conscience. I never let on to ye, Mrs. Markle, but I allus noticed thet thet Gabe never could meet my eye."

The flippant mind might have suggested that as both of Miss Sarah's eyes were afflicted with a cast, there might have been a physical impediment to this exchange of frankness, but then the flippant mind never enjoyed the confidence of this powerful young woman.

It was a month after the wedding, and Mrs. Markle was sitting alone in her parlour, whither she had retired after the professional duties of supper were over, when the front door opened, and Sal entered. It was Sunday evening, and Sal had been enjoying the brief recreation of gossip with the neighbours, and, as was alleged by the flippant mind before alluded to, some coquettish conversation and dalliance with certain youth of One Horse Gulch.

Mrs. Markle watched her handmaid slowly remove an immense straw "flat" trimmed with tropical flowers, and then proceed to fold away an enormous plaid shawl which represented quite another zone, and then her curiosity got the better of her prudence.

"Well, and how did ye find the young couple gettin' on, Sal?"

Sal too well understood the value of coyly-withheld information to answer at once, and with the instincts of a true artist, she affected to misunderstand her mistress. When Mrs. Markle had repeated her question Sal replied, with a a sarcastic laugh —

"Axin yer pardin fur manners, but you let on about the young couple, and she forty if she's anythin'."

"Oh, no, Sal," remonstrated Mrs. Markle, with reproachful accents, and yet a certain self-satisfaction; "you're mistaken, sure."

"Well," said Sal, breathlessly slapping her hands on her lap, "if pearl powder and another woman's har and fancy doin's beggiles folks, it ain't Sal ez is among the folks fooled. No, Sue Markle. Ef I ain't lived long enough with a woman ez owns to thirty-three and hez – ef it wuz my last words and God is my jedge – the neck and arms of a gal of sixteen, not to know when a woman is trying to warm over the scraps of forty year with a kind o' hash o' twenty, then Sal Clark ain't got no eyes, thet's all."

Mrs. Markle blushed slightly under the direct flattery of Sal, and continued —

"Some folks says she's purty."

"Some men's meat is other men's pizen," responded Sal, sententiously, unfastening an enormous black velvet zone, and apparently permitting her figure to fall into instant ruin.

"How did they look?" said Mrs. Markle, after a pause, recommencing her darning, which she had put down.

"Well, purty much as I allowed they would from the first. Thar ain't any love wasted over thar. My opinion is thet he's sick of his bargin. She runs the house and ev'ry thing that's in it. Jest look at the critter! She's just put that thar Gabe up to prospecting all along the ledge here, and that fool's left his diggin's and hez been running hither and yon, making ridiklus holes all over the hill jest to satisfy thet woman, and she ain't satisfied neither. Take my word for it, Sue Markle, thar's suthin' wrong thar. And then thar's thet Olly" —

Mrs. Markle raised her eyes quickly, and put down her work. "Olly," she repeated, with great animation – "poor little Olly! what's gone of her?"

"Well," said Sal, with an impatient toss of her head, "I never did see what thar wuz in that peart and sassy piece for any one to take to – leastwise a woman with a child of her own. The airs and graces thet thet Olly would put on wuz too much. Why, she hedn't been nigh us for a month, and the day afore the wedding what does that limb do but meet me and sez, sez she, 'Sal, ye kin tell Mrs. Markle as my brother Gabe ez goin' to marry a lady – a lady,' sez she. 'Thar ain't goin' to be enny Pikes about our cabin.' And thet child only eight years! Oh, git out thar! I ain't no patience!"

To the infinite credit of a much abused sex, be it recorded that Mrs. Markle overlooked the implied slur, and asked —

"But what about Olly?"

"I mean to say," said Sal, "thet thet child hain't no place in thet house, and thet Gabe is jest thet weak and mean spirited ez to let thet woman have her own way. No wonder thet the child was crying when I met her out in the woods yonder."

Mrs. Markle instantly flushed, and her black eyes snapped ominously. "I should jest like to ketch – " she began quickly, and then stopped and looked at her companion. "Sal," she said, with swift vehemence, "I must see thet child."

"How?"

The word in Sal's dialect had a various, large, and catholic significance. Mrs. Markle understood it, and repeated briefly —

"Olly – I must see her – right off!"

"Which?" continued Sal.

"Here," replied Mrs. Markle; "anywhere. Fetch her when ye kin."

"She won't come."

"Then I'll go to her," said Mrs. Markle, with a sudden and characteristic determination that closed the conversation and sent Sal back viciously to her unwashed dishes.

Whatever might have been the truth of Sal's report, there was certainly no general external indication of the facts. The newly-married couple were, to all appearances, as happy and contented, and as enviable to the masculine inhabitants of One Horse Gulch, as any who had ever built a nest within its pastoral close. If a majority of Gabriel's visitor were gentlemen, it was easily attributed to the preponderance of males in the settlement. If these gentlemen were unanimously extravagant in their praise of Mrs. Conroy, it was as easily attributable to the same cause. That Gabriel should dig purposeless holes over the hill-side, that he should for the time abandon his regular occupation in his little modest claim in the cañon, was quite consistent with the ambition of a newly-married man.

A few evenings after this, Gabriel Conroy was sitting alone by the hearth of that new house, which popular opinion and the tastes of Mrs. Conroy seemed to think was essential to his new condition. It was a larger, more ambitious, more expensive, and perhaps less comfortable dwelling than the one in which he has been introduced to the reader. It was projected upon that credit which a man of family was sure to obtain in One Horse Gulch, where the immigration and establishment of families and household centres were fostered even at pecuniary risks. It contained, beside the chambers, the gratuitous addition of a parlour, which at this moment was adorned and made attractive by the presence of Mrs. Conroy, who was entertaining a few visitors that, under her attractions, had prolonged their sitting until late. When the laugh had ceased and the door closed on the last lingering imbecile, Mrs. Conroy returned to the sitting-room. It was dark, for Gabriel had not lighted a candle yet, and he was occupying his favourite seat and attitude before the fire.

"Why! are you there?" said Mrs. Conroy, gaily.

Gabriel looked up, and with that seriousness which was habitual to him, replied —

"Yes."

Mrs. Conroy approached her lord and master, and ran her thin, claw-like fingers through his hair with married audacity. He caught them, held them for a moment with a kindly, caressing, and yet slightly embarrassed air that the lady did not like. She withdrew them quickly.

"Why didn't you come into the parlour?" she said, examining him curiously.

"I didn't admire to to-night," returned Gabriel, with grave simplicity, "and I reckoned you'd get on as well without me."

There was not the slightest trace of bitterness nor aggrieved sensitiveness in his tone or manner, and although Mrs. Conroy eyed him sharply for any latent spark of jealousy, she was forced to admit to herself that it did not exist in the quiet, serious man before her. Vaguely aware of some annoyance in his wife's face, Gabriel reached out his arm, and, lightly taking her around her waist, drew her to his knee. But the very act was so evidently a recognition of a certain kind of physical and moral weakness in the creature before him – so professional – so, as Mrs. Conroy put it to herself, – "like as if I were a sick man," that her irritation was not soothed. She rose quickly and seated herself on the other side of the fireplace. With the same implied toleration Gabriel had already displayed, he now made no attempt to restrain her.

Mrs. Conroy did not pout as another woman might have done. She only smiled a haggard smile that deepened the line of her nostril into her cheek, and pinched her thin, straight nose. Then she said, looking at the fire —

"Ain't you well?"

"I reckon not – not overly well."

There was a silence, both looking at the fire.

"You don't get anything out of that hill-side?" asked Mrs. Conroy at last, pettishly.

"No," said Gabriel.

"You have prospected all over the ridge?" continued the woman, impatiently.

"All over!"

"And you don't find anything?"

"Nothin'," said Gabriel. "Nary. Thet is," he added with his usual cautious deliberation, "thet is, nothin' o' any account. The gold, ef there is any, lies lower down in the gulch, whar I used to dig. But I kept at it jest to satisfy your whim. You know, July, it was a whim of yours," he continued, with a certain gentle deprecatoriness of manner.

A terrible thought flashed suddenly upon Mrs. Conroy. Could Dr. Devarges have made a mistake? Might he not have been delirious or insane when he wrote of the treasure? Or had the Secretary deceived her as to its location? A swift and sickening sense that all she had gained, or was to gain, from her scheme, was the man before her – and that he did not love her as other men had – asserted itself through her trembling consciousness. Mrs. Conroy had already begun to fear that she loved this husband, and it was with a new sense of yearning and dependence that she in her turn looked deprecatingly and submissively into his face and said —

"It was only a whim, dear – I dare say a foolish one. It's gone now. Don't mind it!"

"I don't," said Gabriel, simply.

Mrs. Conroy winced.

"I thought you looked disappointed," she said after a pause.

"It ain't that I was thinkin' on, July; it's Olly," said Gabriel.

There is a limit even to a frightened woman's submission.

"Of course," she said, sharply; "Olly, Olly again and always. I ought to have remembered that."

"Thet's so," said Gabriel with the same exasperating quiet. "I was reckonin' jest now, ez there don't seem to be any likeliness of you and Olly's gettin' on together, you'd better separate. Thar ain't no sense goin' on this way, July – no sense et all. And the worst o' the hull thing ez thet Olly ain't gettin' no kinder good outer it, no way!"

Mrs. Conroy was very pale and dangerously quiet as Mr. Conroy went on.

"I've allers allowed to send that child to school, but she don't keer to go. She's thet foolish, thet Olly is, thet she doesn't like to leave me, and I reckon I'm thet foolish too thet I don't like to hev her go. The only way to put things square ez this" —

Mrs. Conroy turned and fixed her grey eyes upon her husband, but she did not speak.

"You'd better go away," continued Gabriel, quietly, "for a while. I've heerd afore now that it's the reg'lar thing fur a bride to go away and visit her mother. You hain't got no mother," said Gabriel thoughtfully, "hev ye? – that's bad. But you was a sayin' the other day suthin' about some business you had down at 'Frisco. Now it would be about the nateral sort o' thing for ye to go thar fur two or three months, jest till things get round square with Olly and me."

It is probable that Gabriel was the only man from whom Mrs. Conroy could have received this humiliating proposition without interrupting him with a burst of indignation. Yet she only turned a rigid face towards the fire again with a hysterical laugh.

"Why limit my stay to two or three months?" she said.

"Well, it might be four," said Gabriel, simply – "it would give me and Olly a longer time to get things in shape."

Mrs. Conroy rose and walked rigidly to her husband's side.

"What," she said huskily, "what if I were to refuse?"

Gabriel looked as if this suggestion would not have been startling or inconsistent as an abstract possibility in woman, but said nothing.

"What," continued Mrs. Conroy, more rapidly and huskily, "what if I were to tell you and that brat to go! What," she said, suddenly raising her voice to a thin high soprano, "what if I were to turn you both out of this house —my house! off this land —my land! Eh? eh? eh?" she almost screamed, emphasising each interrogatory with her thin hand on Gabriel's shoulder, in a desperate but impotent attempt to shake him.

"Certingly, certingly," said Gabriel calmly. "But thar's somebody at the door, July," he continued quietly, as he rose slowly and walked into the hall.

His quick ear had detected a knocking without, above the truculent pitch of Mrs. Conroy's voice. He threw open the door, and disclosed Olly and Sal standing upon the threshold.

It is scarcely necessary to say that Sal was first to recover the use of that noble organ, the tongue.

"With chills and ager in every breath – it's an hour if it's five minutes that we've stood here," she began, "pounding at that door. 'You're interrupting the young couple, Sal,' sez I, 'comin' yer this time o' night, breakin' in, so to speak, on the holiest confidences,' sez I; 'but it's business, and onless you hev thet to back you, Sarah Clark,' I sez, 'and you ain't a woman ez ever turned her back on thet or them, you ain't no call there.' But I was to fetch this child home, Mrs. Conroy," continued Sal, pushing her way into the little sitting-room, "and" —

She paused, for the room was vacant. Mrs. Conroy had disappeared.

"I thought I heerd" – said Sal, completely taken aback.

"It was only Gabe," said Olly, with the ready mendacity of swift feminine tact. "I told you so. Thank you, Sal, for seeing me home. Good night, Sal," and, with a dexterity that smote Gabriel into awesome and admiring silence, she absolutely led the breathless Sal to the door and closed it upon her before that astonished female could recover her speech.

Then she returned quietly, took off her hat and shawl, and taking the unresisting hand of her brother, led him back to his former seat by the fire. Drawing a low stool in front of him, she proceeded to nestle between his knees – an old trick of hers – and once more taking his hand, stroked it between her brown fingers, looked up into his face, and said —

"Dear old Gabe!"

The sudden smile that irradiated Gabriel's serious face would have been even worse provocation to Mrs. Conroy than his previous conduct.

"What was the matter, Gabe?" said Olly; "what was she saying when we came in?"

Gabriel had not, since the entrance of his sister, thought of Mrs. Conroy's parting speech and manner. Even now its full significance did not appear to have reached him.

"I disremember, Olly," he replied, looking down into Olly's earnest eyes, "suthin' or other; she was techy, thet's all."

"But wot did she mean by saying that the house and lands was hers?" persisted the child.

"Married folks, Olly," said Gabriel, with the lazy, easy manner of vast matrimonial experience, "married folks hev little jokes and ways o' thar own. Bein' onmarried yourself, ye don't know. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' thet's all – thet's what she meant, Olly. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow.' Did you hev a good time down there?"

"Yes," said Olly.

"You'll hev a nice time here soon, Olly," said Gabriel.

Olly looked incredulously across the hall toward the door of Mrs. Conroy's chamber.

"Thet's it, Olly," said Gabriel, "Mrs. Conroy's goin' to 'Frisco to see some friends. She's thet bent on goin' thet nothin' 'il stop her. Ye see, Olly, it's the fashion fur new married folks to kinder go way and visit absent and sufferin' friends. Thar's them little ways about the married state, that, bein' onmarried yourself, you don't sabe. But it's all right, she's goin'. Bein' a lady, and raised, so to speak, 'mong fashi'n'ble people, she's got to folly the fashin. She's goin' for three months, mebbe four. I disremember now wot's the fashi'n'ble time. But she'll do it, Olly."

Olly cast a penetrating look at her brother.

"She ain't goin' on my account, Gabe?"

"Lord love the child, no! Wot put thet into your head, Olly? Why," said Gabriel with cheerful mendacity, "she's been takin' a shine to ye o' late. On'y to-night she was wonderin' whar you be."

As if to give credence to his words, and much to his inward astonishment, the door of Mrs. Conroy's room opened, and the lady herself, with a gracious smile on her lips and a brightly beaming eye, albeit somewhat reddened around the lids, crossed the hall, and, going up to Olly, kissed her round cheek.