Frontier Stories by Bret Harte

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"Good-by!" He leaped from the opening.

"I say, pardner!"

He turned a little impatiently. She had knelt down at the entrance, so
as to be nearer his level, and was holding out her hand. But he did not
notice it, and she quietly withdrew it.

"If anybody dropped in and asked for you, what name will they say?"

He smiled. "Don't wait to hear."

"But suppose _I_ wanted to sing out for you, what will I call you?"

He hesitated. "Call me--Lo."

"Lo, the poor Indian?" [The first word of Pope's familiar apostrophe is
humorously used in the far West as a distinguishing title for the
Indian.]

"Exactly."

It suddenly occurred to the woman, Teresa, that in the young man's
height, supple, yet erect carriage, color, and singular gravity of
demeanor there was a refined, aboriginal suggestion. He did not look
like any Indian she had ever seen, but rather as a youthful chief might
have looked. There was a further suggestion in his fringed buckskin
shirt and moccasins; but before she could utter the half-sarcastic
comment that rose to her lips he had glided noiselessly away, even as
an Indian might have done.

She readjusted the slips of hanging bark with feminine ingenuity,
dispersing them so as to completely hide the entrance. Yet this did not
darken the chamber, which seemed to draw a purer and more vigorous
light through the soaring shaft that pierced the room than that which
came from the dim woodland aisles below. Nevertheless, she shivered,
and drawing her shawl closely around her began to collect some
half-burnt fragments of wood in the chimney to make a fire. But the
preoccupation of her thoughts rendered this a tedious process, as she
would from time to time stop in the middle of an action and fall into
an attitude of rapt abstraction, with far-off eyes and rigid mouth.
When she had at last succeeded in kindling a fire and raising a film of
pale blue smoke, that seemed to fade and dissipate entirely before it
reached the top of the chimney shaft, she crouched beside it, fixed her
eyes on the darkest corner of the cavern, and became motionless.

What did she see through that shadow?

Nothing at first but a confused medley of figures and incidents of the
preceding night; things to be put away and forgotten; things that would
not have happened but for another thing--the thing before which
everything faded! A ball-room; the sounds of music; the one man she had
cared for insulting her with the flaunting ostentation of his
unfaithfulness; herself despised, put aside, laughed at, or worse,
jilted. And then the moment of delirium, when the light danced; the one
wild act that lifted her, the despised one, above them all--made her
the supreme figure, to be glanced at by frightened women, stared at by
half-startled, half-admiring men! "Yes," she laughed; but struck by the
sound of her own voice, moved twice round the cavern nervously, and
then dropped again into her old position.

As they carried him away he had laughed at her--like a hound that he
was; he who had praised her for her spirit, and incited her revenge
against others; he who had taught her to strike when she was insulted;
and it was only fit he should reap what he had sown. She was what he,
what other men, had made her. And what was she now? What had she been
once?

She tried to recall her childhood: the man and woman who might have
been her father and mother; who fought and wrangled over her precocious
little life; abused or caressed her as she sided with either; and then
left her with a circus troupe, where she first tasted the power of her
courage, her beauty, and her recklessness. She remembered those flashes
of triumph that left a fever in her veins--a fever that when it failed
must be stimulated by dissipation, by anything, by everything that
would keep her name a wonder in men's mouths, an envious fear to women.
She recalled her transfer to the strolling players; her cheap
pleasures, and cheaper rivalries and hatred--but always Teresa! the
daring Teresa! the reckless Teresa! audacious as a woman, invincible as
a boy; dancing, flirting, fencing, shooting, swearing, drinking,
smoking, fighting Teresa! "Oh, yes; she had been loved, perhaps--who
knows?--but always feared. Why should she change now? Ha, he should
see."

She had lashed herself in a frenzy, as was her wont, with gestures,
ejaculations, oaths, adjurations, and passionate apostrophes, but with
this strange and unexpected result. Heretofore she had always been
sustained and kept up by an audience of some kind or quality, if only
perhaps a humble companion; there had always been some one she could
fascinate or horrify, and she could read her power mirrored in their
eyes. Even the half-abstracted indifference of her strange host had
been something. But she was alone now. Her words fell on apathetic
solitude; she was acting to viewless space. She rushed to the opening,
dashed the hanging bark aside and leaped to the ground.

She ran forward wildly a few steps, and stopped.

"Hallo!" she cried. "Look, 'tis I, Teresa!"

The profound silence remained unbroken. Her shrillest tones were lost
in an echoless space, even as the smoke of her fire had faded into pure
ether. She stretched out her clenched fists as if to defy the pillared
austerities of the vaults around her.

"Come and take me if you dare!"

The challenge was unheeded. If she had thrown herself violently against
the nearest tree-trunk, she could not have been stricken more
breathless than she was by the compact, embattled solitude that
encompassed her. The hopelessness of impressing these cold and passive
vaults with her selfish passion filled her with a vague fear. In her
rage of the previous night she had not seen the wood in its profound
immobility. Left alone with the majesty of those enormous columns, she
trembled and turned faint. The silence of the hollow tree she had just
quitted seemed to her less awful than the crushing presence of these
mute and monstrous witnesses of her weakness. Like a wounded quail with
lowered crest and trailing wing, she crept back to her hiding-place.

Even then the influence of the wood was still upon her. She picked up
the novel she had contemptuously thrown aside only to let it fall again
in utter weariness. For a moment her feminine curiosity was excited by
the discovery of an old book, in whose blank leaves were pressed a
variety of flowers and woodland grasses. As she could not conceive that
these had been kept for any but a sentimental purpose, she was
disappointed to find that underneath each was a sentence in an unknown
tongue, that even to her untutored eye did not appear to be the
language of passion. Finally she rearranged the couch of skins and
blankets, and, imparting to it in three clever shakes an entirely
different character, lay down to pursue her reveries. But nature
asserted herself, and ere she knew it she was fast asleep.

So intense and prolonged had been her previous excitement that, the
tension once relieved, she passed into a slumber of exhaustion so deep
that she seemed scarce to breathe. High noon succeeded morning, the
central shaft received a single ray of upper sunlight, the afternoon
came and went, the shadows gathered below, the sunset fires began to
eat their way through the groined roof, and she still slept. She slept
even when the bark hangings of the chamber were put aside, and the
young man reentered.

He laid down a bundle he was carrying, and softly approached the
sleeper. For a moment he was startled from his indifference; she lay so
still and motionless. But this was not all that struck him; the face
before him was no longer the passionate, haggard visage that confronted
him that morning; the feverish air, the burning color, the strained
muscles of mouth and brow, and the staring eyes were gone; wiped away,
perhaps, by the tears that still left their traces on cheek and dark
eyelash. It was a face of a handsome woman of thirty, with even a
suggestion of softness in the contour of the cheek and arching of her
upper lip, no longer rigidly drawn down in anger, but relaxed by sleep
on her white teeth.

With the lithe, soft tread that was habitual to him, the young man
moved about, examining the condition of the little chamber and its
stock of provisions and necessaries, and withdrew presently, to
reappear as noiselessly with a tin bucket of water. This done he
replenished the little pile of fuel with an armful of bark and pine
cones, cast an approving glance about him, which included the sleeper,
and silently departed.

It was night when she awoke. She was surrounded by a profound darkness,
except where the shaft-like opening made a nebulous mist in the corner
in her wooden cavern. Providentially she struggled back to
consciousness slowly, so that the solitude and silence came upon her
gradually, with a growing realization of the events of the past
twenty-four hours, but without a shock. She was alone here, but safe
still, and every hour added to her chances of ultimate escape. She
remembered to have seen a candle among the articles on the shelf, and
she began to grope her way toward the matches. Suddenly she stopped.
What was that panting?

Was it her own breathing, quickened with a sudden nameless terror? or
was there something outside? Her heart seemed to stop beating while she
listened. Yes! it was a panting outside--a panting now increased,
multiplied, redoubled, mixed with the sounds of rustling, tearing,
craunching, and occasionally a quick, impatient snarl. She crept on her
hands and knees to the opening and looked out. At first the ground
seemed to be undulating between her and the opposite tree. But a second
glance showed her the black and gray, bristling, tossing backs of
tumbling beasts of prey, charging the carcass of the bear that lay at
its roots, or contesting for the prize with gluttonous choked breath,
sidelong snarls, arched spines, and recurved tails. One of the boldest
had leaped upon a buttressing root of her tree within a foot of the
opening.

The excitement, awe, and terror she had undergone culminated in one
wild, maddened scream, that seemed to pierce even the cold depths of
the forest, as she dropped on her face, with her hands clasped over her
eyes in an agony of fear.

Her scream was answered, after a pause, by a sudden volley of
firebrands and sparks into the midst of the panting, crowding pack; a
few smothered howls and snaps, and a sudden dispersion of the
concourse. In another moment the young man, with a blazing brand in
either hand, leaped upon the body of the bear.

Teresa raised her head, uttered a hysterical cry, slid down the tree,
flew wildly to his side, caught convulsively at his sleeve, and fell on
her knees beside him.

"Save me! save me!" she gasped, in a voice broken by terror. "Save me
from those hideous creatures. No, no!" she implored, as he endeavored
to lift her to her feet. "No--let me stay here close beside you. So,"
clutching the fringe of his leather hunting-shirt, and dragging herself
on her knees nearer him--"so--don't leave me, for God's sake!"

"They are gone," he replied, gazing down curiously at her, as she wound
the fringe around her hand to strengthen her hold; "they're only a lot
of cowardly coyotes and wolves, that dare not attack anything that
lives and can move."

The young woman responded with a nervous shudder. "Yes, that's it," she
whispered, in a broken voice; "it's only the dead they want. Promise
me--swear to me, if I'm caught, or hung, or shot, you won't let me be
left here to be torn and--ah! my God! what's that?"

She had thrown her arms around his knees, completely pinioning him to
her frantic breast. Something like a smile of disdain passed across his
face as he answered, "It's nothing. They will not return. Get up!"

Even in her terror she saw the change in his face. "I know, I know!"
she cried. "I'm frightened--but I cannot bear it any longer. Hear me!
Listen! Listen--but don't move! I didn't mean to kill Curson--no! I
swear to God, no! I didn't mean to kill the sheriff--and I didn't. I
was only bragging--do you hear? I lied! I lied--don't move, I swear to
God I lied. I've made myself out worse than I was. I have. Only don't
leave me now--and if I die--and it's not far off, may be--get me away
from here--and from _them_. Swear it!"

"All right," said the young man, with a scarcely concealed movement of
irritation. "But get up now, and go back to the cabin."

"No; not _there_ alone." Nevertheless, he quietly but firmly released
himself.

"I will stay here," he replied. "I would have been nearer to you, but I
thought it better for your safety that my camp-fire should be further
off. But I can build it here, and that will keep the coyotes off."

"Let me stay with you--beside you," she said imploringly.

She looked so broken, crushed, and spiritless, so unlike the woman of
the morning that, albeit with an ill grace, he tacitly consented, and
turned away to bring his blankets. But in the next moment she was at
his side, following him like a dog, silent and wistful, and even
offering to carry his burden. When he had built the fire, for which she
had collected the pine--cones and broken branches near them, he sat
down, folded his arms, and leaned back against the tree in reserved and
deliberate silence. Humble and submissive, she did not attempt to break
in upon a reverie she could not help but feel had little kindliness to
herself. As the fire snapped and sparkled, she pillowed her head upon a
root, and lay still to watch it.

It rose and fell, and dying away at times to a mere lurid glow, and
again, agitated by some breath scarcely perceptible to them, quickening
into a roaring flame. When only the embers remained, a dead silence
filled the wood. Then the first breath of morning moved the tangled
canopy above, and a dozen tiny sprays and needles detached from the
interlocked boughs winged their soft way noiselessly to the earth. A
few fell upon the prostrate woman like a gentle benediction, and she
slept. But even then, the young man, looking down, saw that the slender
fingers were still aimlessly but rigidly twisted in the leather fringe
of his hunting-shirt.

CHAPTER II.

It was a peculiarity of the Carquinez Wood that it stood apart and
distinct in its gigantic individuality. Even where the integrity of its
own singular species was not entirely preserved, it admitted no
inferior trees. Nor was there any diminishing fringe on its outskirts;
the sentinels that guarded the few gateways of the dim trails were as
monstrous as the serried ranks drawn up in the heart of the forest.
Consequently, the red highway that skirted the eastern angle was bare
and shadeless, until it slipped a league off into a watered valley and
refreshed itself under lesser sycamores and willows. It was here the
newly-born city of Excelsior, still in its cradle, had, like an infant
Hercules, strangled the serpentine North Fork of the American river,
and turned its life-current into the ditches and flumes of the
Excelsior miners.

Newest of the new houses that seemed to have accidentally formed its
single, straggling street was the residence of the Rev. Winslow Wynn,
not unfrequently known as "Father Wynn," pastor of the first Baptist
church. The "pastorage," as it was cheerfully called, had the glaring
distinction of being built of brick, and was, as had been wickedly
pointed out by idle scoffers, the only "fireproof" structure in town.
This sarcasm was not, however, supposed to be particularly distasteful
to "Father Wynn," who enjoyed the reputation of being "hail fellow,
well met" with the rough mining element, who called them by their
Christian names, had been known to drink at the bar of the Polka Saloon
while engaged in the conversion of a prominent citizen, and was
popularly said to have no "gospel starch" about him. Certain conscious
outcasts and transgressors were touched at this apparent unbending of
the spiritual authority. The rigid tenets of Father Wynn's faith were
lost in the supposed catholicity of his humanity. "A preacher that can
jine a man when he's histin' liquor into him, without jawin' about it,
ought to be allowed to wrestle with sinners and splash about in as much
cold water as he likes," was the criticism of one of his converts.
Nevertheless, it was true that Father Wynn was somewhat loud and
intolerant in his tolerance. It was true that he was a little more
rough, a little more frank, a little more hearty, a little more
impulsive, than his disciples. It was true that often the proclamation
of his extreme liberality and brotherly equality partook somewhat of an
apology. It is true that a few who might have been most benefited by
this kind of gospel regarded him with a singular disdain. It is true
that his liberality was of an ornamental, insinuating quality,
accompanied with but little sacrifice; his acceptance of a collection
taken up in a gambling-saloon for the rebuilding of his church,
destroyed by fire, gave him a popularity large enough, it must be
confessed, to cover the sins of the gamblers themselves, but it was not
proven that _he_ had ever organized any form of relief. But it was true
that local history somehow accepted him as an exponent of mining
Christianity, without the least reference to the opinions of the
Christian miners themselves.

The Rev. Mr. Wynn's liberal habits and opinions were not, however,
shared by his only daughter, a motherless young lady of eighteen.
Nellie Wynn was in the eye of Excelsior an unapproachable divinity, as
inaccessible and cold as her father was impulsive and familiar. An
atmosphere of chaste and proud virginity made itself felt even in the
starched integrity of her spotless skirts, in her neatly-gloved
finger-tips, in her clear amber eyes, in her imperious red lips, in her
sensitive nostrils. Need it be said that the youth and middle age of
Excelsior were madly, because apparently hopelessly, in love with her?
For the rest, she had been expensively educated, was profoundly
ignorant in two languages, with a trained misunderstanding of music and
painting, and a natural and faultless taste in dress.

The Rev. Mr. Wynn was engaged in a characteristic hearty parting with
one of his latest converts upon his own doorstep, with admirable _al
fresco_ effect. He had just clapped him on the shoulder. "Good-by,
good-by, Charley, my boy, and keep in the right path; not up, or down,
or round the gulch, you know--ha, ha!--but straight across lots to the
shining gate." He had raised his voice under the stimulus of a few
admiring spectators, and backed his convert playfully against the wall.
"You see! we're goin' in to win, you bet. Good-by! I'd ask you to step
in and have a chat, but I've got my work to do, and so have you. The
gospel mustn't keep us from that, must it, Charley? Ha, ha!"

The convert (who elsewhere was a profane expressman, and had become
quite imbecile under Mr. Wynn's active heartiness and brotherly
horse-play before spectators) managed, however, to feebly stammer with
a blush something about "Miss Nellie."

"Ah, Nellie. She, too, is at her tasks--trimming her lamp--you know,
the parable of the wise virgins," continued Father Wynn hastily,
fearing that the convert might take the illustration literally. "There,
there--good-by. Keep in the right path." And with a parting shove he
dismissed Charley and entered his own house.

That "wise virgin," Nellie, had evidently finished with the lamp, and
was now going out to meet the bridegroom, as she was fully dressed and
gloved, and had a pink parasol in her hand, as her father entered the
sitting-room.

His bluff heartiness seemed to fade away as he removed his soft,
broad-brimmed hat and glanced across the too fresh-looking apartment.
There was a smell of mortar still in the air, and a faint suggestion
that at any moment green grass might appear between the interstices of
the red-brick hearth. The room, yielding a little in the point of
coldness, seemed to share Miss Nellie's fresh virginity, and, barring
the pink parasol, set her off as in a vestal's cell.

"I supposed you wouldn't care to see Brace, the expressman, so I got
rid of him at the door," said her father, drawing one of the new chairs
towards him slowly, and sitting down carefully, as if it were a
hitherto untried experiment.

Miss Nellie's face took a tint of interest. "Then he doesn't go with
the coach to Indian Spring to-day?"

"No; why?"

"I thought of going over myself to get the Burnham girls to come to
choir-meeting," replied Miss Nellie carelessly, "and he might have been
company."

"He'd go now if he knew you were going," said her father; "but it's
just as well he shouldn't be needlessly encouraged. I rather think that
Sheriff Dunn is a little jealous of him. By the way, the sheriff is
much better. I called to cheer him up to-day" (Mr. Wynn had in fact
tumultuously accelerated the sick man's pulse), "and he talked of you,
as usual. In fact, he said he had only two things to get well for. One
was to catch and hang that woman Teresa, who shot him; the other--can't
you guess the other?" he added archly, with a faint suggestion of his
other manner.

Miss Nellie coldly could not.

The Rev. Mr. Wynn's archness vanished. "Don't be a fool," he said
dryly. "He wants to marry you, and you know it."

"Most of the men here do," responded Miss Nellie, without the least
trace of coquetry. "Is the wedding or the hanging to take place first,
or together, so he can officiate at both?"

"His share in the Union Ditch is worth a hundred thousand dollars,"
continued her father; "and if he isn't nominated for district judge
this fall, he's bound to go to the legislature, any way. I don't think
a girl with your advantages and education can afford to throw away the
chance of shining in Sacramento, San Francisco, or, in good time,
perhaps even Washington."

Miss Nellie's eyes did not reflect entire disapproval of this
suggestion, although she replied with something of her father's
practical quality.

"Mr. Dunn is not out of his bed yet, and they say Teresa's got away to
Arizona, so there isn't any particular hurry."

"Perhaps not; but see here, Nellie, I've some important news for you.
You know your young friend of the Carquinez Woods--Dorman, the
botanist, eh? Well, Brace knows all about him. And what do you think he
is?"

Miss Nellie took upon herself a few extra degrees of cold, and didn't
know.

"An Injin! Yes, an out-and-out Cherokee. You see he calls himself
Dorman--Low Dorman. That's only French for 'Sleeping Water,' his Injin
name--'Low Dorman.'"

"You mean 'L'Eau Dormante,'" said Nellie.

"That's what I said. The chief called him 'Sleeping Water' when he was
a boy, and one of them French Canadian trappers translated it into
French when he brought him to California to school. But he's an Injin,
sure. No wonder he prefers to live in the woods."

"Well?" said Nellie.

"Well," echoed her father impatiently, "he's an Injin, I tell you, and
you can't of course have anything to do with him. He mustn't come here
again."

"But you forget," said Nellie imperturbably, "that it was you who
invited him here, and were so much exercised over him. You remember you
introduced him to the Bishop and those Eastern clergymen as a
magnificent specimen of a young Californian. You forget what an
occasion you made of his coming to church on Sunday, and how you made
him come in his buckskin shirt and walk down the street with you after
service!"

"Yes, yes," said the Rev. Mr. Wynn hurriedly.

"And," continued Nellie carelessly, "how you made us sing out of the
same book 'Children of our Father's Fold,' and how you preached at him
until he actually got a color!"

"Yes," said her father; "but it wasn't known then he was an Injin, and
they are frightfully unpopular with those Southwestern men among whom
we labor. Indeed, I am quite convinced that when Brace said 'the only
good Indian was a dead one' his expression, though extravagant,
perhaps, really voiced the sentiments of the majority. It would be only
kindness to the unfortunate creature to warn him from exposing himself
to their rude but conscientious antagonism."

"Perhaps you'd better tell him, then, in your own popular way, which
they all seem to understand so well," responded the daughter. Mr. Wynn
cast a quick glance at her, but there was no trace of irony in her
face--nothing but a half-bored indifference as she walked toward the
window.

"I will go with you to the coach-office," said her father, who
generally gave these simple paternal duties the pronounced character of
a public Christian example.

"It's hardly worth while," replied Miss Nellie. "I've to stop at the
Watsons', at the foot of the hill, and ask after the baby; so I shall
go on to the Crossing and pick up the coach as it passes. Good-by."

Nevertheless, as soon as Nellie had departed, the Rev. Mr. Wynn
proceeded to the coach-office, and publicly grasping the hand of Yuba
Bill, the driver, commended his daughter to his care in the name of the
universal brotherhood of man and the Christian fraternity. Carried away
by his heartiness, he forgot his previous caution, and confided to the
expressman Miss Nellie's regrets that she was not to have that
gentleman's company. The result was that Miss Nellie found the coach
with its passengers awaiting her with uplifted hats and wreathed smiles
at the Crossing, and the box-seat (from which an unfortunate stranger,
who had expensively paid for it, had been summarily ejected) at her
service beside Yuba Bill, who had thrown away his cigar and donned a
new pair of buckskin gloves to do her honor. But a more serious result
to the young beauty was the effect of the Rev. Mr. Wynn's confidences
upon the impulsive heart of Jack Brace, the expressman. It has been
already intimated that it was his "day off." Unable to summarily
reassume his usual functions beside the driver without some practical
reason, and ashamed to go so palpably as a mere passenger, he was
forced to let the coach proceed without him. Discomfited for the
moment, he was not, however, beaten. He had lost the blissful journey
by her side, which would have been his professional right, but--she was
going to Indian Spring! could he not anticipate her there? Might they
not meet in the most accidental manner? And what might not come from
that meeting away from the prying eyes of their own town? Mr. Brace did
not hesitate, but saddling his fleet Buckskin, by the time the
stagecoach had passed the Crossing in the high-road he had mounted the
hill and was dashing along the "cut-off" in the same direction, a full
mile in advance. Arriving at Indian Spring, he left his horse at a
Mexican _posada_ on the confines of the settlement, and from the piled
_debris_ of a tunnel excavation awaited the slow arrival of the coach.
On mature reflection he could give no reason why he had not boldly
awaited it at the express office, except a certain bashful
consciousness of his own folly, and a belief that it might be glaringly
apparent to the bystanders. When the coach arrived and he had overcome
this consciousness, it was too late. Yuba Bill had discharged his
passengers for Indian Spring and driven away. Miss Nellie was in the
settlement, but where? As time passed he became more desperate and
bolder. He walked recklessly up and down the main street, glancing in
at the open doors of shops, and even in the windows of private
dwellings. It might have seemed a poor compliment to Miss Nellie, but
it was an evidence of his complete preoccupation, when the sight of a
female face at a window, even though it was plain or perhaps painted,
caused his heart to bound, or the glancing of a skirt in the distance
quickened his feet and his pulses. Had Jack contented himself with
remaining at Excelsior he might have vaguely regretted, but as soon
become as vaguely accustomed to, Miss Nellie's absence. But it was not
until his hitherto quiet and passive love took this first step of
action that it fully declared itself. When he had made the tour of the
town a dozen times unsuccessfully, he had perfectly made up his mind
that marriage with Nellie or the speedy death of several people,
including possibly himself, was the only alternative. He regretted he
had not accompanied her; he regretted he had not demanded where she was
going; he contemplated a course of future action that two hours ago
would have filled him with bashful terror. There was clearly but one
thing to do--to declare his passion the instant he met her, and return
with her to Excelsior an accepted suitor, or not to return at all.

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