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Show Ctory of Bonanza Day, la. If ST GERALD IITE B0JTNI2L 1 ' ada and ; Baa ; Praneiaoo. II (Copyright 1 by Bobbs-Merrlll Co.) I i , chamber, filled with silver a a nut is " with kernel, ' devel- oped In ever Increasing- richness. The ; city was packed close as a hive with ; . beea with twenty-flve thousand souls all quivering- to the Increasing momen- rum of the excitement The minea ( were a' dynamo whence electric vlbra- ( tiona spread into the- -world outside, j , The dwellers In huts among- the sage were shaken by them. They thrilled j ; along the Pacific slope. . In New Torlc and .London men felt them nd their ' pulses quickened. The Bonanza times were nearly at the flood. The city grew with astonishing ra-pldity. ra-pldity. breathlessly climbed the side j of Mount Davidson In ascending tiers . of streets. There wal no- time Tor ; grading or paving. Tw stories in the front meant four in . ne back, the kitchens of B street looked over they shingled roofs of the shops on C j street. It was a gray town, clinging to . a desolate raoun- tain side, in a gray country. At ; its base, appearing to force it up the ' slope, were the hoisting works of the i mines, dotted so close along the lode they nearly touched. Every mine in : this line was a mighty name In the-! world of finance. New York. London and Paris .waited each morning to hear news from the town in the wilder-ness. wilder-ness. And as the anthill swarmed and trembled with the fury of its concentrated concen-trated life, the desert looked on, serene, se-rene, incurious, still. Old Friends With New Face. The Allen girls moved to Virginia " City in April. Their father had gone there early in the year and taken a j house which would be a proper and 1 fitting place from which to marry -Rosamund. He had found what he thought suitable In the mansion, as they called it in Virginia, of one , Murchison, a mining superintendent. : who. In the heyday of sudden riches, j had built him a comfortable home and then died. he paced onward In an absorbed reverie, rev-erie, his eyes down, striking the cracks in the pavement with the tip of his cane. Presently he looked up above the housetops, at the widths of sky sown with great, calm stars. It was early night; only the larger stars were visible. Once or twice as he walked on looking up. he laughed, a short, dry laugh, at himself and the follies he had committed. When he reached his own room In the Travelers' hotel he found Rion's answer to his letter. Standing under the feeble light that fell from the sitting-room chandelier, he read It- It waa short, for Rlon was but a poor correspondent. The position of assistant assist-ant secretary of the Cresta Plata would be vacant on January first.' The Gracey boys would be flattered if one of James Parrlsh's reputation and position po-sition would care to fill It- The salary would be $500 a month. The Colonel turned the letter over, eying it. The heaviness of, his spirit was lightened. Through the few lines he seemed to feel the strong grip of the mining man's hand, to meet the searching look of his keen, honest eyes. They would alt be together In Virginia' not ' such a bad. beginning for a new life at 60. BOOK 411. CHAPTER I. , Nevada. The mountain wall of .the Sierra bounds California on its eastern -side. It is a rampart, towering and impregnable, impreg-nable, between the garden and- the desert. - From, its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with crusted snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swimming in unfathomable unfathoma-ble shadow, to where, vast pale, far-flung far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, the garden. On the other side gaunt, hostile, gray Is Nevada, the desert. In other lands nature and man have ended their struggle for supremacy. Man has conquered and nature, after down for the place aa Jt stands, furniture furni-ture and alL" There was a slight pause and the rpeaker added: "It's what decided me to go to Virginia, Vir-ginia, get rid of this and and get some ready money. I'm pretty close to the ragged edge, Jim." "I don't see how It's going to benefit you," said the Colonel. "My mortgage and the Interest for two years back, paid In full, doesn't leave you much more than your fares to Virginia."- . Allen got up, .walked a few steps away, then came back and stood by the Colonel's chair. His face was deeply flushed,, but it had lost Its embarrassed em-barrassed air. He looked resolute and determined. "Jim," he said doggedly. "I've got to have that money." "Beau Allen." said the Colonel In the same tone, "by what right do you dare to say that to me?" For a silent moment they eyed each other, then the elder man went on: - "Twenty-flve years ago you stole my sweetheart. Four years ago you tried to steal ray land' and I gave It to you, because you had a wife and two helpless help-less children; and now you're trying i to steal my house." "I've got the same right as I had' before," said the other, "I've still got two helpless children." "Am I to be robbed to provide for your children?" "You're using pretty strong words, Jim, but you've had provocation. You've met bad usage at my hands, and you've given back good. Give it back once more, for the last time. Give it back for the sake of my two girls. They're as helpless now as they ever were, and God knows I'm as unable un-able to help them." "Why should I keep on providing for your children? You're their father, fa-ther, younger than I. and as able-bodied. able-bodied. Four years ago I put you on your feet when I gave you the Parrish tract. You've had your chances,- the best I could give you. I'm on the ragged edge. too. I'm 0 years old. energy . of animation and clasped his hand. "I knew you'd do it," she said. "I knew If I came to you for help I'd never nev-er be disappointed. I asked father for it, and he! '" she completed the sentence sen-tence with a shrug. "1? .nadn't U, perhaps," suggested the Colonel. "That's what he said. He said he couldn't possibly give it to me, that he was in debt now. And look at the way we live! Look at this dress. He knows how I feel. He has only to look at me, but he said he couldn't give It." "Will five thousand be enough, do you think?" said the Colonel, who had no comments to make on Allen, of whose mode of life and need of money he knew more than June. 'I don't know. I don't know anything any-thing about traveling.' I've never been anywhere but in California and Nevada. Ne-vada. But it ought to be enough for a while. - Anyway, if I had that I could go. I could get away from all this. I could get away from San Francisco and California, and the people and things that torture me."' She rose from the chair and picked up her umbrella.' Her languor of dejection de-jection had returned. She cast a list less eye toward the pane and said: "I must go. It'll soon be dark." Then she moved toward the window and for a moment stood looking down on the street. ' . .- , "It's quite easy for you to give It to me. Isn't It?" she asked without turning. ., "You're not like father, always al-ways talking about your wonderful, priceless stocks, and with not a cent to give a person who's Just about got to he end of everything." "Don't alk about that." he answered quickly. "There can't be a better use for my money than to help you when you're in trouble. I'll see you in a few days and arrange then to give it to you." She turned ffom the window. "Well, good-by. then." she said. "I must go. .Good-bye, Uncle Jim, my own dear, dear. Uncle Jim." She extended her hand to him, and as he took it, looked with wistful eyes Into his. of her old ooquetry brightened her face. "Isn't that one of the privileges of my sex?" . . -' "What made you change it? " Good Lord, dearie, I'm so glad!" "I'll tell you all about it. There are several threads to this story. In the first place Rosamund didn't like It. She thought itwas queer for me to go to Europe alone and leave Father; and Just before her wedding, too. She wouldn't hear of my not being at the wedding. But the other reason was more the real one. ; - She sat up, her elbow In the cushions, cush-ions, her head on her hand, the fingers in her loosened hair.. Her eyes on the fire were melancholy and contemplative. contempla-tive. , "You remember what I said to you about not being able to live here any longer? How I couldn't stand it? Well, father's going to Virginia City." "What difference does that make? He's been going there for years." "Yes. but to live, I mean. Tto take us and make our home there. That's the reason I'vec hanged my mind. I needn't go so far as Europe. We're all going to leave California and live In Nevada." The Colonel was astonished. He was prepared for strange actions on Allen's part, but a bodily family removal re-moval to Virginia when his affairs were in so complicated a condition was unlooked for. and incomprehensible. And why had not Allen spoken to him of It? When In town they saw each other almost dally on Pine and Montgomery Mont-gomery streets. "Isn't it a very sudden decision ' of your father's?" he asked. "He had no Idea of it last week. You didn't know it when you came to see me that day, did you?" "I didn't know of It till tow days I ago. It's all happened In a minute. I Father didn't know It. I was still thinking about going away and arguing with Rosamund about It, when ' he came and told us he'd decided to move to Nevada, that he had more business there than here, and It would be much cheaper having one house in Virgina than for him to be up there. -with us down here in San Francisco. " I .. . do you love him? I I upon my word, dearest, if It was any girl but you I'd be ashamed of her." "You don't love a man because he'a good, or noble, or any of those things. It's not a thing you reason about. It's something that steals into you and takes possession of you. I knowvhat Jerry la I suppose it's all true what you say. He may be different from what I thought he was. He may be cruel and unkind to me. But that won't make me change." "But good God. he's treated you like a dog thrown you over for a girl with money, made surreptitious love to you when he was bound to a woman he'd ruined and whose husband was his friend! Heavens, June, you can't love a dirty scrub like that! You're a good girl honest and high-minded you can't go on caring "for him when you see now what he is!" "Oh, Uncle Jim. dear, you can't change me by talking that way. Women Wo-men don't love men with their reason, they love them with their hearts. The Jerry that I know is not the Jerry that you know. There are two, and they're quite different. The Jerry that I know and used to meet in the plaza, on Turk street, was always kind and sweet to me, and I used to be so happy when I was with him! I know now they're both true. I guess yours Is as true as mine. But even If it is. I care Just the same. There's no arguing or convincing con-vincing only Just that fact." "After he's made a public show of you and engaged himself to Mercedes not two months after Mrs. Newbury's death? Such a dirty record! Such a mean, cold-blooded, calculating cur! V CHAPTER XIII. ; . : (Con tinned.) ,"Noi' encSh courage!" he now rented. re-nted. ,"Ws there ever any time ice I've knowmyou when you want-'i want-'i courage to coml to me?" '.'Never before." she answered, ending with her back to him looking TJt of the window.. Her voice, her attitude, her profile rainst the pane, were expressive- of he completest dejection. : She was expensively ex-pensively and beautifully dressed in a risp silken gown of several shades of olue. Every detail of her appearance "was elegant and fastldioua In her i years of city life she had developed all the extravagance, the studious consld- -aration of her. raiment, of a fashlon-l fashlon-l able woman. Now ' her costly dress, the Jeweled ornaments she wore, her i . gloves, her hat with its long blue J feather that rested on her brlght-col- ored hair, the tip of the shoe that -peeped from her skirts combined to 4, make her a figure of notable feminine t . finish and distinction. And aorround-t aorround-t ad by this elaboration of careful daJn-Y daJn-Y tines, her heaviness of spirit seemed '. thrown up into higher relief. S "Come, sit down," said the Colonel, polling the chair toward her. "I can't aik comfortably to . you when you 'stand there with your back to me looking look-ing out of the window as if we'd been quarreling." She returned to the chair and obediently obedi-ently sank Into it. Her hands hung vover its arms, one of them languidly Joldinr the umbrella. He had thourht . The Murchison mansion had coma 1 on the market Just at the right mo-j ment. Allen told people. Men won- . dered where his money came from, as ; the current talk among his kind was ', that "the bottom had fallen out of the ', Barranca, -and Allen was bust." ' He t himself spread the story that suocees-' ful speculations had once again set ' him on his feet. That something had i done so was proved by his renting of the Murchison mansion, a furnished j house in the Virginia City of that period pe-riod being an expensive luxury. . It stood at the south end of B street, perched high on the top of two slop-, ing teraces which were bulk-headed' by a wooden wall, surmounted by an , ornamental balustrade. Small fruit; trees and flowering shrubs clothed the ' terraces In a thin, flickering foliage. Just showing Its first, faint tips of. green when the girls arrived. A long ; flight of steps ran up to a balcony . which rounded out about the front door, and upon which one seemed to. be mounted high In the air, looking, down over a dropping series of flat j and peaker roofs to where the dark red walls and tall chimneys of the hoisting works clustered about the city's feet. Beyond this unrolled the wild, bare landscape, undulating, line of mountain beyond mountain, cut long years of service. Is glad to work for him, to quicken the seed he sows, to swell the fruit on the branch, and ripen the heads of grain. She laps him round with comfort, whispers her secrets to him, reveals herself In sweet, sylvan Intercourse. And he. cosily content, knows her as his loving slave, no more rebellious, happy to serve. But in Nevada, nature .Is still un-conquered, un-conquered, savage and supreme. It Is the primordial world, with man a shivering stranger amid its grim aloofness. aloof-ness. When the voice of God went out into the darkness and said, "Let there be light." the startled life, cowering cow-ering In caves and benath rocks, may have looked out on such a land an unwatered waste, treeless, flowerless, held ln2n immemorial silence. Man v we know him has no place here. He Is a speck moving between the dome of sky and the floor of earth. Nature scorns him, has watched him die and whitened his bones in a few blazing weeks. The seed he plants withers in Its kernel, the earth he turns up, frosted with alkali, drops apart In livid flakes. The rare rivers by which he pitches his tent are aiid I've had to apply for a position." ; "Listen to me, Jtip." with desperate urgence. "Let me have this money till after Rosamund's marriage. Let me have $15,000 of It. So help me God. I ll invest the rest In your name in any securities you mention. Don't you see I've got to have money till after that? I can't let narrower know we're bust. You think he doesn't care. But I tell you he does. What's going to happen to Rosamund if he throws her over at the last moment?" The Colonel was silent, looking at the ash tray from beneath down-drawn, down-drawn, bushy brows. Allen close at his elbow continued with fevered intensity: in-tensity: . "Rosamund's wrapped up, body and Isoul, in that man. What's she going to do If he backs out? And you know 'him; you've seen the kind he is, daft about his family and his ancient, honorable hon-orable name. Even If he doesn't want money with her, do you think he, with his ancestors' portraits hanging hang-ing on the walls, wants to marry a girl whose father's a busted mining speculator specu-lator in debt all round, who hasn't What made It particularly easy and convenient was that some one wants to buy the house." This was a second shock, but there was illumination in it. The listener felt now that he was getting to the heart-of the matter. "Buy the house!" he ejaculated. "This house?" "Yes, this house. I've forgotten the man's name. Some one from Sacramento Sac-ramento wants to buy it Just as it stands, with the furniture and everything. every-thing. It's not a very good offer, but property's gone down here, as it has all over this side of town, and father says it's not bad, considering that It makes it so much easier for us to go." He was, for the moment, too astonished aston-ished to make any comments. She spoke as though the sale was decided on, the move settled. He knew that neither of the sisters was aware of the mortgage he held on the property, and he listened to her in staring silence as she went on: "So that's why I'm not going to Europe. Virginia's far enough away from San Francisco. I'll I'll not "I feel as If you were really my father," she said. "It's only to a father or mother that a person feels they can come and ask things from as I have from you today." The Colonel . kissed her without speaking. At the doorway she turned ' and he waved his hand In farewell, but again said nothing. June walked home through the soft gray damp of the afternoon. As she looked up' the lines of the long streets that climbed the hills, then sloped down toward the water front; she saw the fog blotting them out. erasing outlines, out-lines, stealthily creeping downward till the distance looked like a slate blurred by a wet sponge. She remembered remem-bered evenings like this in the first year of her San Francisco life, when she walked, home briskly with the chill air moist on her face and her imagination imagina-tion stirred by the mystery and strangeness of the dim, many-hilled city, veiled in whorls and eddies of vaporous white. There was no beauty in it tonight, only a sense of desolat-tlon, desolat-tlon, cold and creepingly pervasive as the fog. Oh. June. Where's your pride?" "Dead." she said bitterly, "dead long ago." She suddenly sat upright, turned on him, and spoke with somber vehemence: vehe-mence: , "There's no pride, there's no question ques-tion of yourself sometimes I think there's no honor, with a girl who feel for a man as I do for him. I know him now, all about him. I know in my heart that he's what you say. I think sometimes, deep down under everything, I have a feeling for him that is almost contempt. But I'm his while he's alive and I am. I can't any more Change that than I can make myself taller or shorter. If I'd known in the beginning what I do now it would have all been different. It's too late now to ask me where my pride is. and why I don't tear myself free from such a bondage. It's spoiled my life. It's broken my heart. Sometimes Some-times I wish Jerry was dead, because then I know I'd be myself again." He looked at her horrified. Pallid and shrunken in her rich clothes, eaten into by the passion that now. for the first time, he heard her confess, it seemed to him that she could not be the girl he had met at Foleys three and a half years ago. To his strong, self-denying nature, her wetness was terrible. He did not know that that weakness was one of the attributes which made her so lovable. "I dare say there's something bad about me," she went on. "I can see that other people don't feel this way. I know Rosamund wouldn't. If Lionel had not really cared for her and asked her to marry him she would have gone to work and Just uprooted him from her mind like a weed in a garden. She wouldn't have let things that weren't right get such a hold on her. But I I never tried to stop it. And now the weed's choked out everything else in the garden." "Don't let it choke oUt everything. Root it up! Tear it out! Don't be conquered by a weed, June!" "Oh, Uncle Jim,' she almost groaned with the eternal cry of the self-indulgent and weak, "if only I "had stopped it in the beginning! I wouldn't have grown to love him so if I'd known. It's been such useless suffering. Nobody's gained anything by It. It's all been such a waste!" There was a silence. The Colonel sat looking down with his heart feeling feel-ing heavy as a stone. When he came against that wall of acquiescent feminine femi-nine feebleness, he felt that he could say nothing. She stirred In her chair and said, her voice suddenly low, her words coming slowly: "They're to be married In January. his suggestion about quarreling would make her laugh, but she did not seem Jto have heard It. ' f "And now," he said, drawing a chair 'up beside her, "let's hear what It is you hadn't the courage to tell to your 'Jncle Jim? Have you been robbing Y murdering, or what?" 'Tve been staying In the house -"X looking out of the window. rft'r-feel like going out. I oh, ncle Jim she said, suddenly turn-J turn-J ing her head as it rested on the chalr-back chalr-back and letting her eyes dwell on his, "I've been so miserable!" He leaned forward and took her hand. He had nothing to say. Her words needed no further commentary than that furnished by her appearance. appear-ance. With the afternoon light shining shin-ing on her face, she looked a woman of thirty, worn and thin. All the L . freshness of the young girl was gone. V "That'a what I've come to talk V about," she said: "I don't feel some-t some-t ' times as If I could live here any longer, as if I could breathe here. I hate to yo out. I hate to mee tpe ople. Every morner I turn I'm afraid that I may Jieet them and and then " her JL-olce suddenly became hoarse and she j sat up and cleared her throat, f fFor a moment a heavy silence held the room. The Colonel broke It. ( "How would you like to go up to leys for a , while?" he suggested. sirfather was telling me the other .t. the superintendent of the ya had a nice little house and decent sort of wife. You could there. It would be a change." -""Foleys!" she echoed. "Oh, not .foleys! It's too full of the past before 'anything had happened. No, I want lo go away, far away, away from ( everything. . That's what I came to L ' talk about. -1 want to go to Europe." "Europe!" he exclaimed. "But ' but you'd be gone for months." 'Yes, that's Just it That's what I i want to be gone for months, for even years -I. want to get away from San Francisco and California and every-f every-f thing I know here,".( The - Colonel was silent. He felt C suddenly .depressed and chilled. San ( Francisco without June! His life "jlthout June! The mean little room ith Its hideous "wall paper and cheap furniture came upon him with Its true -ireary strangeness. The city outside grew suddenly a hollow place of wind .and fog. - Life, that was always so full (for him. grew blank with a sense of (cold nostalgic emptiness. He had never realized before how she Illumined Illu-mined every corner of it. . "Well, dearie," he said, trying to apeak cheerfully "that sounds a big undertaking; sort of thing you don't ciear as cameos against tne blue Nevada Ne-vada sky. The vivid green streak made by the Carson river gleamed to the right. At the limit of sight, fitted Into a gap between be-tween the hills, was the Carson desert, ft patch of stark, yellow sand. Th girls were not surprised at the style of the house. They knew vaguely that their father's affairs were not as satisfactory as they had been, but of their truly desperate nature they had no suspicion. There were delays in . . the sale of the Folsom street prop- "V erty, and it was not till March that the new tenant appeared from Sacramento Sacra-mento to take possession. In response to their father's orders they obediently gathered together their belongings, closed the house, and made the move to Virginia without assistance from him. Evens had fallen together in an unexpected un-expected way, but one that in the end spared June those glimpses of her lover's happiness that she had told the Colonel would be unbearable. It is true that she had to see the carriages drive to Jerry's marriage and hear the sound of his wedding bells. But before that event circumstances had developed devel-oped which made radical changes in the plans of bride and groom. Black Dan had discovered that Jerry's business busi-ness had dwindled to nothing, his private pri-vate fortune vanished in the Crown Point collapse. The bonanza king, with his rapidly accumulating millions,, had a sturdy American objection to an idle man, especially when that man was to be the husband of his only child, and was known to be of a light sucked Into the soil, as though grudgj Ing him the few drops with which hi cools his burning throat. An outcasl from a later age he Is intruder here! These solemn wastes and eternal hlllq have not yet learned to call him mas-1 ter. y When the pioneers trailed acrossJ&ir' Nevada was to them only "the desV," a place where the horrors of heajInd thirst culminated. They knew Ivaa a sterile, gray expanse, and with Imes of lilac-blue or reddish-purple hi Hi seeming seem-ing to march with them as they moved. From high places they saw It outspread like a map, its surface tippled with sage and the long green ribbon of a tree-fringed river looping across Its grim aridity. At evening it took on limpid, gem-like colors. The hills tnrned transparent sapphire and amethyst, the sky burned a thin, clear red. An unbroken stillness lay upon it and struck chill on the hearts of the little bands who, oppressed by its vast indifference, cowered beneath its remote, re-mote, unfamiliar stars. As they passed across It they mined a little; here and there they scrapod the surface, clustered round a stream bed for a day or two and sent the water wa-ter circling in their pans. But California, Cali-fornia, the land of promise, was their goal. With the western sun In their eyes they looked at the mountain wall and spoke of I lie Eldorado beyond where the gold lay yellow In the sluice box, and flecked with glittering flakes the prospector's pan. That was in forty-nine. Ten years later they were hurrying backward over the mountains to the streams that see them there or hear about It as I would down here. And then there was another reason that's made me glad to stay. When I thought of leaving leav-ing you and Rosamund it was so hard ' loo hard! I don't seem to be one I of those independent women who cani go about the world alone far away,' from the people they love. I'd leave my roots behind me, deep down in the ground I came from. 1 don't think I, could ever pull them up. And if I tried and pulled too hard they'd break, and then I suppose I'd wither up and' die." She turned her eyes from the fire to him. She was smiling slightly, her face singularly sad under the smile. He looked at her and said softly: ! "My girl!" He saf on with her for a pace, dlsJ-cussing dlsJ-cussing the move and making plans!. With some embarrassment he told her of the fact that he had written to Rlon Gracey, applying for a position-The position-The thought that he would be in Vlr-' Vlr-' ginla called the first real color of life and pleasure Into her face that he had seen there for weeks. He saw that the excitement of the move, the hope of change fro mthe environment In which she had so suffered, had had 'a bracing and cheering effect on her. It was evident that she had set her heart on going. Despite her cold and general gen-eral air of sickly fragilits' she was more like herself, showed more of her old vivacity and Interest, than she had done since the night of the Davenport ball. On his way down the stairs he de- got the means to buy his daughter a decent dress to get married In? Look at June! Are the futures of both my daughters going to be ruined because I'm broke? Good God. Parrish, you care for them! You can't now, when you see what June's been brought to, stand in the way of Rosamund's happiness." hap-piness." The Colonel sat looking at the ash tray for a frowning moment, then he said: "What have you done with the spring? If there had been no mineral on the land the spring would have brought iou an Income for years. '.'( "I sold NJie land with the spring on it, after the Crown Point collapse. Blake, the hotel man In San Jose, bought it. and is building a hotel up there now. That's the past. I'm not defending it, nor my life between then and now. I'm talking of my children. Put me, and what I am, out of the question. It's my two girls that count Just now." The Colonel rose, and walking to the fireplace, stood there with his elbow el-bow on the mantelpiece, looking down at the small fire that glowed in the grate. Allen by the table watched him with anxious, waiting eyes. "I've got chances In Virginia." he said. "Living on the spot there's a different proposition from running back and forth like this. The May-borough May-borough properties that I'm interested in are looking pretty promising. Inside In-side of a year, if they turn out as we expect. I may be able to pay you the whole sum back." CHAPTER XIV. It took the Colonel a week to raise the money. He did it by selling the second of his South Park houses. The sale being a hurried one of property already well on the decline, the house realized less than, even in the present state of eclipse, it was worth. Five years before it had been appraised at fifteen thousand dollars. Today the best offer he could get was nine. He placed the money In the bank, the five thousand to stay there till June had decided more definitely on her movements. The remainder he would leave on deposit to his own account. ac-count. June, In Europe, with five thousand dollars to her fortune, was not beyond the circle of his sense of responsibility. Some one must have money to give her when she needed It, as she certainly would. Her habits- of economy had long ago been sloughed off with her faded cotton dresses and her country-made boots. Rosamund would be able to give her a home, but there must be some one somewhere upon whom she could make a demand for funds. There was no need now for the Colonel to study his accounts. He knew them through and through. There was so little to know. The shutdown shut-down mine In Shasta and his mortgage-on the Folsom street house were all that was left to him. On the day that the sale of the South Park house was decided upon he wrote to Rlon and pleasure-loving temperament. A. p'osltion was made for Jerry on the Cresta Plata, with duties sufficiently exacting to keep him continually' occupied, oc-cupied, and with the added attraction of an exceedingly generous salary. Mercedes sulked when she heard It. She did not want to live In Virginia. She had thought she might go' there from time to time, flit through it, disturbing vision of beauty to miners and millionaires, but to take up her residence there was a different' matter.-She matter.-She wanted to occupy the fine house her father had given her in San Fran-: cisco. nntertain royally and be a quean- ' of society, with Jerry ras a necessary, satellite circling about. She complained com-plained to Black Dan. even cried a little, and for the first time in her life found him obdurate. The doting father was trouble abaat the future of his child. He disliked the marriage she was making, but knew that t oprotest against it was hopeless. He mistrusted Jerry, whose -N record he had often heard canvassed, and whose style, as a charmer of women, he despised. He wanted the pair under his eye. He wanted to keep his hand tight on his son-in-law. He did not believe that the man loved Mercedes, and he took a bitter satisfaction satis-faction in bringing him to Virginia and setting him to work. "Rlon and I can watch him," he thought to himself. "We'll keep his nose to the grindstone, and if he shows any symptoms of lifting it we'll hold it closer." elded, if Allen was not in, to wait for him in the sitting-room. But as he reached the stair foot a faint film .of cigar pmoke and the more pungent reek of whiskey floated from the open doorway, and told him that the master mas-ter of the house was already there. Allen was sitting by the table, a decanter de-canter and glass near his elbow, his cigar poised in a waiting hand, as he listened to the descending footsteps. The Chinaman had told him that Colonel Parrish had railed to see June, and Allen stationed himself by the doorway to catch the visitor on his way out. 'That you, Jim?" he called, as the footfall neared the end of the flight. "Glad you came. Drop in here for a minute before you go. I've something I want to talk to you about." The Colonel entering, noticed that the other was even more flushed than he usually was at this hour, and that his glance was evasive, his manner constrained. He pushed his cigar-case across the table with a hand that' was unsteady, and tried to cover his ; embarrassment em-barrassment by the strident Jocularity of his greeting. The Colonel, sitting down on the arm of a heavy leather chair, did not beat about the bush. "What's this June's been telling me." he said, "about you all moving to Virginia? Since when have you decided de-cided on that?" "Only a day or two ago. I was going go-ing around to see you tomorrow about It, If you hadn't come this afternoon. I've made up my mind to go.1 My drain Mount Davidson. Nevada had Its wealth too, a hidden, rock-ribbed wealth. Jealously burled. They tore it out. built a city of tents and shacks as they delved, and In ten years more were gone again, dispersed over the far West like the embers of .a fire which a wind scatters. Then once again the barren State drew them back. Deep in the roots of Mount lavldson one of the greatest great-est ore bodies In the world lay burled. This time they gathered in their might. Miner. engineer. assayer. stock-jobber, manipulator, manager and millionaire poured over the mountain moun-tain wall, bringing In their train the birds of prey that follow in the wake of the mining army. The city of tents and cabins grew into a city of stteeis and buildings and spread, climbing the mountain side In terraces. A railroad sprawled perilously near to it. looping over the mountain flanks. In a cleared nook by a river the smoke of Its mills blackened the sky. Isolated from the rest of the world, encircled by desolation, the town seethed and boiled with an abnormal activity, a volcano of life in the midst of a dead land. About it the desert brooded, pressing In upon It. watching and waiting. To It the little city was an outside thing, hostile, alien, unwelcome. unwel-come. It soorned the pigmy passions of its men and women, had no sympathy sympa-thy with the extravagances of their money madness. When they had been brushed away like an anthill by a passing foot, it would sweep over their town, obliterate their traces, reclaim The Colonel gave a suppressed sound, short and scornful, but did not raise his head. The other went on. "Fifteen thousand will carry us to Virginia and over the wedding. Har-rower's Har-rower's to be back In the spring and they'll be married as soon as he conies. Spencer wants the house In January or February. That will Just about fit In. We can go to Xirginla as soon as the sale's completed and have everything ready and In shape by the time narrower gets here. And It will be better for June, too, belter to get her out of all this. She feels pretty bad, poor little girl! One of the reasons rea-sons that makes me so keen about selling the place and leaving Is to get her away from all this talk about Barclay and that Gracey girl." Tho Colonel, without raising his eyes, said: "You'll want the whole twenty-flve thousand?" "No no " said Allen with undisguised undis-guised eagerness, hope illuminating his face, "fifteen will do, though, of course, twenty would be better. Fifteen Fif-teen ought to carry us well along Into the summer, and by that time the Mayborough should be paying. There'll be the wedding and the trousseau. trous-seau. Of course, twenty would be better, but If you'll let me have the fifteen I can do It. Ill Invest the other ten any way you may say, an " He stopped as the Colonel turned from the fire with a short laugh. "Sell the house," he said, "and take Gracey, asking him for a position, any overground position that the owners of the Cresta Plata thought he would suit. It-was a hard letter to write. He was nearly sixty, and he had never, since his youth, asked any one for anything for himself. But one must live, "G. T.'s widow" had to be considered, not to mention June, living in England and having to be dressed as June should always be dressed. Two days later the details of the sale were completed and the money deposited. Late that afternoon the Colonel, clad carefully In the shiny coat June had caught him brushing, went across town to Folsom street. He had done what she asked and all was ready. The servant told him she was confined con-fined to her room with a bad cold, and after a few minutes' waft In the hall, he was conducted upstairs, and found her lying on a sofa In the great front room, with Its lofty celling and tall, heavily-draped windows. The sofa was drawn up before a small fire that sent a fluctuating glow over her face, flushed with a slight fever, and burnished bur-nished the loose coil of brown hair that crowned her head. She had a heavy cold, her voice was hoarse, her words interrupted at intervals by a cough. She was delighted to see him, sitting up among the cushions on which she reclined to hold out her hand, and rallying him on the length of time since his last visit. "But I've been busy," he said, drawing draw-ing a chair up to the foot of the soft, "busy over your affairs, young unman " It s going to be a short engagement. Black Dan's going to give them a house down here with everything new and beautiful. I'll see them all the time, everywhere. I know Just the way they'll look, smiling Into each other's eyes." She stopped and then sat up with a rustling of crushed silks. ','How do people bear thee things? I haven't hurt anybody or done any harm to have to suffer this way. When I'm alone I keep thinking of them how happy they are together, not taring tar-ing for anything in the world but each other. I think of him kissing her. I think that some day they'll have a baby " her voice trailed awayhoarsely and she sank back In the chair, her head on her breast. 'The Colonel got up and walked to the window. These same savage pangj had once torn him. In his powerr-:! heyday It had taken all the force oi his manhood ti- crush them. How could she wage that blasting fight? H turned and looked at her as she sat fallen together in the embrace of the chair. "I think you're right, June, about going away," he said. "It's the best thing for you to do. The old man'U have to get on as well as he can for a while without you." She did not move and answered in a dull voice: "It's the only thing for me to do." "When were you thinking of going?" "Soon as soon as I can. Anyway, before January. I must go before then. And and Uncle Jim, this was nrho T r-amc tn fisk von and wm I settle up all In a minute. You couldn't .go alone .and Rosamund couldn't go rith you." . "I know all that. I've thought It -all out. , I haven't slept well lately and il arranged it when I was awake at j Vlght. I could take some one with pit.' a sort of companion person. And when Rosamund got married and rime over there with Lionel, why, .then I could stay with them. Per-Vhaps Per-Vhaps I could live with them for a while. He has such a big house." ( She paused, evidently waiting to see )how the Colonel would take her sug-gestlons. sug-gestlons. "That's all possible enough," he ' aald- "but well, there's your father. ; How about him ?" i "Oh, my father!" the note of scorn , fen her voice was supplemented by a 1 tide look at him which showed she : nad no further Illusions as to her ! father. "My father can get on very ' well without me.". Even if she had come to know Allen ' at-hls'Just worth, the hardness of W '. tone hurt the Colonel. It showed him i now deep had been the change In her ; In1 the last three years. 1 "It's hard on him Just the same," he j said, "to lose his two daughters at j once." "Parents have to lose their chll-' chll-' i dren," she answered In the same tone. : "Suppose I'd married a foreigner like Rosamund?" . The Colonel , did not answer. Sud-. Sud-. ' denly she laid the hand near him on his. "There's only you and Rosamund," she said. "And now Rosamund's going go-ing too." Black Dan said little of his uneasiness uneasi-ness to any one save his brother. The two men had the same opinion of Jerry, Jer-ry, and though neither expressed it to the other, each feltcold doubts as to the happiness of the" marriage. Early in January, after a honeymoon honey-moon of less than a week, Jerry was summoned to his new duties. He and Mercedes were installed in a house on B street, which had been hired and hastily refitted for them. Here In the heart of a biting Nevada winter their married life began. Neither bride nor ' groom guessed that it was being surreptitiously sur-reptitiously watched by three pairs of interested eyes. To the observation, of the suspicious and inimical Graceys that of Col. Parrish was added. He , too, had come to Virginia on the first of January to assume his position as , assistant secretary of the Cresta Platou He and Rlon had settled themselves in comfortable quarters on the floor over Caswell's drug store, where their rooms gave on a balustraded wooden veranda which looked out on the tur- moll of C street. (To Be Continued.) Theater open at Saltair this wees. it all." "What?" Allen did not quite dare to believe it. "Sell the house. See Spencer as soon as you can, and I'll give you satisfaction sat-isfaction of the mortgage." "Jim!" the other ejaculated, and held out a shaking hand. But the Colonel brushed by it and passed into the hall, where his hat and coat hung. Allen followed him, trying to talk, but he stopped the feeble words of gratitude. Standing under the hall lamp, the light falling on his white hair, he said: "There's no thanks between you and me. If it wasn't for your daughters, I'd see you standing on the corner begging for nickels and not drop one In your tin cup. And you know it In your tin cup. And you know it. You. know, , too, what I feel about them, and why I feel it You know I'd do It again if I had he money. But I haven't. There's not much more to be got out of me. You've about sucked me dry." The night was clear and he walked home, slowly and llngerlngly by a circuitous cir-cuitous route of cross-streets. At first business Is all up there now. There's no sense living in Virginia two-thirds of the time and running a house down here.' ' "How about Rosamund's wedding?" the Colonel asked. "Have it up there. You can have a wedding In Virginia just as well as you can in San Francisco. I can rent a house a first-rate house, furnished and all ready, and give her Just as good a send-off as any girl in California. Califor-nia. That's w hat I calculate to do. It'll require money up there or down here, but that's an expense that's got to be." "June says you've had an offer for this house. Who made It, and j what's he offered?" j Allen leaned forward to knock off the ash of his cigar on the tray beside him. i "That's what I wanted to see you about." he said slowly. "Yes. I've had an offer. It's from a man , named Spencer from Sacramento. Juet come down here to settle. He's got a big family, and wants a good-sized house and garden for the -kids to play In. Fashionable locality doesn't count for much with him. He's offered $25,000 l:v ' V ' its own. And once again the silence of a landscape where there Is neither ripple of water nor murmur of leaf would resettle In crystal quietude. Confined within their own walls, with no outlet for the pressure under which they lived, the Inhabitants of Virginia burned with a wild activity and energy. The conditions of life were so unusual, so fiercely stimulating stimulat-ing to effort and achievement, that average av-erage human beings were lifted from their places and became creatures of dauntless initiative. They conquered the unconquerable, accomplished triumphs tri-umphs of daring and ingenuity where under ordinary circumstances they would have recoiled before insuperable obstacles. They were outside themselves, them-selves, larger for good or evil than they had ever been before or would be again. Nature had dared them to her vanquishing and they had risen to the challenge. In the spring of 1874 the ferment In the spring of 1874 the ferment incident in-cident to the opening of the great ore the "Big Bonanza." began to bubble toward boiling point. Month by month stocks had steadily risen, and month by month the huge treasure "My affairs." she answered, looking look-ing puzzled; then with sudden comprehension. com-prehension. "Oh, the money!" "That's it." he nodded, "the money. Well, it's all ready and waiting for you in the bank. When you want it we'll open an account for you. or buy a letter of credit with it. or make whatever arrangement seems best. Anyway, there it is whenever you want to go." "Oh. Uncle Jim!" she breathed. "And now what do you thlnk's happened?" hap-pened?" "What?" he asked with suddenly arretted ar-retted attention. It was on his mind that startling things might be expected ex-pected to happen in the Allen household house-hold at any moment. . "I'm not going!" "You're not goingj? June, don't tell me that!" . The Joy in his voice and eyes was transfiguring in Its sudden radiance. He left his chair and sat down on the end of the soft near her feet, leaning lean-ing toward her, pathetically eager to hear. "I've changed my mind," a gleam afraid. We've been a long time getting get-ting to it." She looked at him with a sort of tentative uneasiness. "It's asking a good deal." she added, "but you've always been so good to me." "What Is it, dearie?" he said gently. "Don't you know it's my pleasure to do anything for you?" "I want vou to give me the money to go with." For a moment the Colonel was so surprised that he looked at her without with-out answering. As she spoke the color came faintly into her face. "It it won't be very much," she went on hurriedly, "perhaps enough for a year. I thought five thousand dollars would do." "Five thousand dollars," he said, recovering re-covering himself, "five thousand dollars? dol-lars? Why. of course " He paused, looking down on the floor and asking himself where he was to get five thousand dollars. . "I'll get it for you, only you'll have to give me a few days." She leaned forward with a sudden "Its it's pretty hard even to Jhlnk of," he answered. jT ."But. Uncle Jim." she urged In the r erotism of her pain, blind. to all else. "I can't stay here. It's too much. You must guess how I feel." "I can guess." he answered, nodding. "I .can't bear it. I can't stand It. If I could die It would be afl right, but I can't-even die. I've got to go on , living, and if I stay here I've got to 1 ' to on hearing everybody talking about them and saying how happy they are. I Every time I go 'out I run the risk of meetihg them, of seeing them together, to-gether, with Jerry looking st her the used to look at me." .oke ? quietly, staring at the 'fore her with steady eyea e said almost roughly, "I sensibly to . you. . All the '"urope won't make you don't make an effort vf free of all this. Now y shown you what he : guard. I told it to go, and you know it j a experience, JVTijr 1 |