CHAPTER II

Six hours later, when the shadow of Devil’s Spur had crossed the river, and spread a slight coolness over the flat beyond, the Pioneer coach, leaving the summit, began also to bathe its heated bulk in the long shadows of the descent. Conspicuous among the dusty passengers, the two pretty and youthful faces of the daughters of Philip Carr, mining superintendent and engineer, looked from the windows with no little anxiety towards their future home in the straggling settlement below, that occasionally came in view at the turns of the long zigzagging road. A slight look of comical disappointment passed between them as they gazed upon the sterile flat, dotted with unsightly excrescences that stood equally for cabins or mounds of stone and gravel. It was so feeble and inconsistent a culmination to the beautiful scenery they had passed through, so hopeless and imbecile a conclusion to the preparation of that long picturesque journey, with its glimpses of sylvan and pastoral glades and canyons, that, as the coach swept down the last incline, and the remorseless monotony of the dead level spread out before them, furrowed by ditches and indented by pits, under cover of shielding their cheeks from the impalpable dust that rose beneath the plunging wheels, they buried their faces in their handkerchiefs, to hide a few half-hysterical tears. Happily, their father, completely absorbed in a practical, scientific, and approving contemplation of the topography and material resources of the scene of his future labors, had no time to notice their defection. It was not until the stage drew up before a rambling tenement bearing the inscription, “Hotel and Stage Office,” that he became fully aware of it.

“We can’t stop HERE, papa,” said Christie Carr decidedly, with a shake of her pretty head. “You can’t expect that.”

Mr. Carr looked up at the building; it was half grocery, half saloon. Whatever other accommodations it contained must have been hidden in the rear, as the flat roof above was almost level with the raftered ceiling of the shop.

“Certainly,” he replied hurriedly; “we’ll see to that in a moment. I dare say it’s all right. I told Fairfax we were coming. Somebody ought to be here.”

“But they’re not,” said Jessie Carr indignantly; “and the few that were here scampered off like rabbits to their burrows as soon as they saw us get down.”

It was true. The little group of loungers before the building had suddenly disappeared. There was the flash of a red shirt vanishing in an adjacent doorway; the fading apparition of a pair of high boots and blue overalls in another; the abrupt withdrawal of a curly blond head from a sashless window over the way. Even the saloon was deserted, although a back door in the dim recess seemed to creak mysteriously. The stage-coach, with the other passengers, had already rattled away.

“I certainly think Fairfax understood that I—” began Mr. Carr.

He was interrupted by the pressure of Christie’s fingers on his arm and a subdued exclamation from Jessie, who was staring down the street.

“What are they?” she whispered in her sister’s ear. “Nigger minstrels, a circus, or what?”

The five millionaires of Devil’s Ford had just turned the corner of the straggling street, and were approaching in single file. One glance was sufficient to show that they had already availed themselves of the new clothing bought by Fairfax, had washed, and one or two had shaved. But the result was startling.

Through some fortunate coincidence in size, Dick Mattingly was the only one who had achieved an entire new suit. But it was of funereal black cloth, and although relieved at one extremity by a pair of high riding boots, in which his too short trousers were tucked, and at the other by a tall white hat, and cravat of aggressive yellow, the effect was depressing. In agreeable contrast, his brother, Maryland Joe, was attired in a thin fawn-colored summer overcoat, lightly worn open, so as to show the unstarched bosom of a white embroidered shirt, and a pair of nankeen trousers and pumps.

The Kearney brothers had divided a suit between them, the elder wearing a tightly-fitting, single-breasted blue frock-coat and a pair of pink striped cotton trousers, while the younger candidly displayed the trousers of his brother’s suit, as a harmonious change to a shining black alpaca coat and crimson neckerchief. Fairfax, who brought up the rear, had, with characteristic unselfishness, contented himself with a French workman’s blue blouse and a pair of white duck trousers. Had they shown the least consciousness of their finery, or of its absurdity, they would have seemed despicable. But only one expression beamed on the five sunburnt and shining faces—a look of unaffected boyish gratification and unrestricted welcome.

They halted before Mr. Carr and his daughters, simultaneously removed their various and remarkable head coverings, and waited until Fairfax advanced and severally presented them. Jessie Carr’s half-frightened smile took refuge in the trembling shadows of her dark lashes; Christie Carr stiffened slightly, and looked straight before her.

“We reckoned—that is—we intended to meet you and the young ladies at the grade,” said Fairfax, reddening a little as he endeavored to conceal his too ready slang, “and save you from trapesing—from dragging yourselves up grade again to your house.”

“Then there IS a house?” said Jessie, with an alarming frank laugh of relief, that was, however, as frankly reflected in the boyishly appreciative eyes of the young men.

“Such as it is,” responded Fairfax, with a shade of anxiety, as he glanced at the fresh and pretty costumes of the young women, and dubiously regarded the two Saratoga trunks resting hopelessly on the veranda. “I’m afraid it isn’t much, for what you’re accustomed to. But,” he added more cheerfully, “it will do for a day or two, and perhaps you’ll give us the pleasure of showing you the way there now.”

The procession was quickly formed. Mr. Carr, alive only to the actual business that had brought him there, at once took possession of Fairfax, and began to disclose his plans for the working of the mine, occasionally halting to look at the work already done in the ditches, and to examine the field of his future operations. Fairfax, not displeased at being thus relieved of a lighter attendance on Mr. Carr’s daughters, nevertheless from time to time cast a paternal glance backwards upon their escorts, who had each seized a handle of the two trunks, and were carrying them in couples at the young ladies’ side. The occupation did not offer much freedom for easy gallantry, but no sign of discomfiture or uneasiness was visible in the grateful faces of the young men. The necessity of changing hands at times with their burdens brought a corresponding change of cavalier at the lady’s side, although it was observed that the younger Kearney, for the sake of continuing a conversation with Miss Jessie, kept his grasp of the handle nearest the young lady until his hand was nearly cut through, and his arm worn out by exhaustion.

“The only thing on wheels in the camp is a mule wagon, and the mules are packin’ gravel from the river this afternoon,” explained Dick Mattingly apologetically to Christie, “or we’d have toted—I mean carried—you and your baggage up to the shant—the—your house. Give us two weeks more, Miss Carr—only two weeks to wash up our work and realize—and we’ll give you a pair of 2.40 steppers and a skeleton buggy to meet you at the top of the hill and drive you over to the cabin. Perhaps you’d prefer a regular carriage; some ladies do. And a nigger driver. But what’s the use of planning anything? Afore that time comes we’ll have run you up a house on the hill, and you shall pick out the spot. It wouldn’t take long—unless you preferred brick. I suppose we could get brick over from La Grange, if you cared for it, but it would take longer. If you could put up for a time with something of stained glass and a mahogany veranda—”

In spite of her cold indignation, and the fact that she could understand only a part of Mattingly’s speech, Christie comprehended enough to make her lift her clear eyes to the speaker, as she replied freezingly that she feared she would not trouble them long with her company.

“Oh, you’ll get over that,” responded Mattingly, with an exasperating confidence that drove her nearly frantic, from the manifest kindliness of intent that made it impossible for her to resent it. “I felt that way myself at first. Things will look strange and unsociable for a while, until you get the hang of them. You’ll naturally stamp round and cuss a little—” He stopped in conscious consternation.

With ready tact, and before Christie could reply, Maryland Joe had put down the trunk and changed hands with his brother.

“You mustn’t mind Dick, or he’ll go off and kill himself with shame,” he whispered laughingly in her ear. “He means all right, but he’s picked up so much slang here that he’s about forgotten how to talk English, and it’s nigh on to four years since he’s met a young lady.”

Christie did not reply. Yet the laughter of her sister in advance with the Kearney brothers seemed to make the reserve with which she tried to crush further familiarity only ridiculous.

“Do you know many operas, Miss Carr?”

She looked at the boyish, interested, sunburnt face so near to her own, and hesitated. After all, why should she add to her other real disappointments by taking this absurd creature seriously?

“In what way?” she returned, with a half smile.

“To play. On the piano, of course. There isn’t one nearer here than Sacramento; but I reckon we could get a small one by Thursday. You couldn’t do anything on a banjo?” he added doubtfully; “Kearney’s got one.”

“I imagine it would be very difficult to carry a piano over those mountains,” said Christie laughingly, to avoid the collateral of the banjo.

“We got a billiard-table over from Stockton,” half bashfully interrupted Dick Mattingly, struggling from his end of the trunk to recover his composure, “and it had to be brought over in sections on the back of a mule, so I don’t see why—” He stopped short again in confusion, at a sign from his brother, and then added, “I mean, of course, that a piano is a heap more delicate, and valuable, and all that sort of thing, but it’s worth trying for.”

“Fairfax was always saying he’d get one for himself, so I reckon it’s possible,” said Joe.

“Does he play?” asked Christie.

“You bet,” said Joe, quite forgetting himself in his enthusiasm. “He can snatch Mozart and Beethoven bald-headed.”

In the embarrassing silence that followed this speech the fringe of pine wood nearest the flat was reached. Here there was a rude “clearing,” and beneath an enormous pine stood the two recently joined tenements. There was no attempt to conceal the point of junction between Kearney’s cabin and the newly-transported saloon from the flat—no architectural illusion of the palpable collusion of the two buildings, which seemed to be telescoped into each other. The front room or living room occupied the whole of Kearney’s cabin. It contained, in addition to the necessary articles for housekeeping, a “bunk” or berth for Mr. Carr, so as to leave the second building entirely to the occupation of his daughters as bedroom and boudoir.

There was a half-humorous, half-apologetic exhibition of the rude utensils of the living room, and then the young men turned away as the two girls entered the open door of the second room. Neither Christie nor Jessie could for a moment understand the delicacy which kept these young men from accompanying them into the room they had but a few moments before decorated and arranged with their own hands, and it was not until they turned to thank their strange entertainers that they found that they were gone.

The arrangement of the second room was rude and bizarre, but not without a singular originality and even tastefulness of conception. What had been the counter or “bar” of the saloon, gorgeous in white and gold, now sawn in two and divided, was set up on opposite sides of the room as separate dressing-tables, decorated with huge bunches of azaleas, that hid the rough earthenware bowls, and gave each table the appearance of a vestal altar.