Gabriel Conroy

She handed Gabriel a small slip of paper with the pencilled words, "You'll find your friends waiting for you to-night on Conroy's Hill."

The handwriting was unfamiliar, but even if it were Jack's, how did he manage to send it without his knowledge? He had not lost sight of Jack except during the few moments he had reconnoitred the mouth of the tunnel, since they had escaped from the Court House. Gabriel was perplexed; in the presence of this anonymous note he was confused and speechless, and could only pass his hand helplessly across his forehead. "But it's all right now, Gabe," continued Olly, reassuringly, "the Vigilantes hev run away – what was left of them; the sheriff ain't to be found nowhar! This yer earthquake hez frightened everybody outer the idea of huntin' ye – nobody talks of ennything but the earthquake; they even say, Gabe – I forgot to tell ye – that our claim on Conroy Hill has busted, too, and the mine ain't worth shucks now! But there's no one to interfere with us now, Gabe! And we're goin' to get into a waggin that Pete hez bespoke for us at the head of Reservoir Gulch to-morrow mornin' at sun-up! And then Pete sez we kin git down to Stockton and 'Frisco and out to a place called San Antonio, that the devil himself wouldn't think o' goin' to, and thar we kin stay, me and you and Jack, until this whole thing has blown over and Jack gits well agin and July comes back."

Gabriel, still holding the hand of his sister, dared not tell her of the suspicions of Lawyer Maxwell, regarding her sister-in-law's complicity in this murder, nor Jack's conviction of her infidelity, and he hesitated. But after a pause, he suggested with a consciousness of great discretion and artfulness, "Suppose thet July doesn't come back?"

"Look yer, Gabe," said Olly, suddenly, "ef yer goin' to be thet foolish and ridiklus agin, I'll jess quit. Ez if thet woman would ever leave ye." (Gabriel groaned inwardly.) "Why, when she hears o' this, wild hosses couldn't keep her from ye. Don't be a mule, Gabe, don't!" And Gabriel was dumb.

Meantime, under the influence of some anodyne which Pete had found in his medicine chest, Mr. Hamlin became quiet and pretermitted his vocal obligato. Gabriel, whose superb physical adjustment no mental excitement could possibly overthrow, and whose regular habits were never broken by anxiety, nodded, even while holding Olly's hand, and in due time slept, and I regret to say – writing of a hero – snored. After a while Olly herself succumbed to the drowsy coolness of the night, and wrapped in Mr. Hamlin's shawl, pillowed her head upon her brother's broad breast and slept too. Only Pete remained to keep the watch, he being comparatively fresh and strong, and declaring that the condition of Mr. Hamlin required his constant attention.

It was after midnight that Olly dreamed a troubled dream. She thought that she was riding with Mr. Hamlin to seek her brother, when she suddenly came upon a crowd of excited men who were bearing Gabriel to the gallows. She thought that she turned to Mr. Hamlin frantically for assistance, when she saw to her horror that his face had changed – that it was no longer he who sat beside her, but a strange, wild-looking, haggard man – a man whose face was old and pinched, but whose grey hair was discoloured by a faded dye that had worn away, leaving the original colour in patches, and the antique foppery of whose dress was deranged by violent exertion, and grimy with the dust of travel – a dandy whose strapped trousers of a bygone fashion were ridiculously loosened in one leg, whose high stock was unbuckled and awry! She awoke with a start. Even then her dream was so vivid that it seemed to her this face was actually bending over her with such a pathetic earnestness and inquiry that she called aloud. It was some minutes before Pete came to her, but as he averred, albeit somewhat incoherently and rubbing his eyes to show that he had not closed them, that he had never slept a wink, and that it was impossible for any stranger to have come upon them without his knowledge, Olly was obliged to accept it all as a dream! But she did not sleep again. She watched the moon slowly sink behind the serrated pines of Conroy's Hill; she listened to the crackling tread of strange animals in the underbrush, to the far-off rattle of wheels on the Wingdam turnpike, until the dark outline of the tree trunks returned, and with the cold fires of the mountain sunrise the chilly tree-tops awoke to winged life, and the twitter of birds, while the faint mists of the river lingered with the paling moon like tired sentinels for the relief of the coming day. And then Olly awoke her companions. They struggled back into consciousness with characteristic expression. Gabriel slowly and apologetically, as of one who had overslept himself; Jack Hamlin violently and aggressively, as if some unfair advantage had been taken of his human weakness that it was necessary to combat at once. I am sorry to say that his recognition of Pete was accompanied by a degree of profanity and irreverence that was dangerous to his own physical weakness. "And you had to trapse down yer, sniffin' about my tracks, you black and tan idiot," continued Mr. Hamlin, raising himself on his arm, "and after I'd left everything all straight at Wingdam – and jest as I was beginning to reform and lead a new life! How do, Olly? You'll excuse my not rising. Come and kiss me! If that nigger of mine has let you want for anything, jest tell me and I'll discharge him. Well! hang it all! what are you waitin' for? Here it's daybreak and we've got to get down to the head of Reservoir Gulch. Come, little children, the picnic is over!"

Thus adjured, Gabriel rose, and lifting Mr. Hamlin in his arms with infinite care and tenderness, headed the quaint procession. Mr. Hamlin, perhaps recognising some absurdity in the situation, forbore exercising his querulous profanity on the man who held him helpless as an infant, and Olly and Pete followed slowly behind.

Their way led down Reservoir Cañon, beautiful, hopeful, and bracing in the early morning air. A few birds, awakened by the passing tread, started into song a moment, and then were still. With a cautious gentleness, habitual to the man, Gabriel forbore, as he strode along, to step upon the few woodland blossoms yet left to the dry summer woods. There was a strange fragrance in the air, the light odours liberated from a thousand nameless herbs, the faint melancholy spicing of dead leaves. There was, moreover, that sense of novelty which Nature always brings with the dawn in deep forests; a fancy that during the night the earth had been created anew, and was fresh from the Maker's hand, as yet untried by burden or tribulation, and guiltless of a Past. And so it seemed to the little caravan – albeit fleeing from danger and death – that yesterday and its fears were far away, or had, in some unaccountable way, shrunk behind them in the west with the swiftly dwindling night. Olly once or twice strayed from the trail to pick an opening flower or lingering berry; Pete hummed to himself the fragment of an old camp-meeting song.

And so they walked on, keeping the rosy dawn and its promise before them. From time to time the sound of far-off voices came to them faintly. Slowly the light quickened; morning stole down the hills upon them stealthily, and at last the entrance of the cañon became dimly outlined. Olly uttered a shout and pointed to a black object moving backward and forward before the opening. It was the waggon and team awaiting them. Olly's shout was answered by a whistle from the driver, and they quickened their pace joyfully; in another moment they would be beyond the reach of danger.

Suddenly a voice that seemed to start from the ground before them called on Gabriel to stop! He did so unconsciously, drawing Hamlin closer to him with one hand, and with the other making a broad protecting sweep toward Olly. And then a figure rose slowly from the ditch at the roadside and barred their passage.

It was only a single man! A small man bespattered with the slime of the ditch and torn with brambles; a man exhausted with fatigue and tremulous with nervous excitement, but still erect and threatening. A man whom Gabriel and Hamlin instantly recognised, even through his rags and exhaustion! It was Joe Hall – the sheriff of Calaveras! He held a pistol in his right hand, even while his left exhaustedly sought the support of a tree! By a common instinct both men saw that while the hand was feeble the muzzle of the weapon covered them.

"Gabriel Conroy, I want you," said the apparition.

"He's got us lined! Drop me," whispered Hamlin, hastily, "drop me! I'll spoil his aim."

But Gabriel, by a swift, dexterous movement that seemed incompatible with his usual deliberation, instantly transferred Hamlin to his other arm, and with his burden completely shielded, presented his own right shoulder squarely to the muzzle of Hall's revolver.

"Gabriel Conroy, you are my prisoner," repeated the voice.

Gabriel did not move. But over his shoulder as a rest, dropped the long shining barrel of Jack's own favourite duelling pistol, and over it glanced the bright eye of its crippled owner. The issue was joined!

There was a deathlike silence.

"Go on!" said Jack, quietly. "Keep cool, Joe. For if you miss him, you're gone in; and hit or miss I've got you sure!"

The barrel of Hall's pistol wavered a moment, from physical weakness but not from fear. The great heart behind it, though broken, was undaunted.

"It's all right," said the voice fatefully. "It's all right, Jack! Ye'll kill me, I know! But ye can't help sayin' arter all that I did my duty to Calaveras as the sheriff, and 'specially to them twenty-five men ez elected me over Boggs! I ain't goin' to let ye pass. I've been on this yer hunt, up and down this cañon all night. Hevin' no possy I reckon I've got to die yer in my tracks. All right! But ye'll git into thet waggon over my dead body, Jack – over my dead body, sure."

Even as he spoke these words he straightened himself to his full height – which was not much, I fear – and steadied himself by the tree, his weapon still advanced and pointing at Gabriel, but with such an evident and hopeless contrast between his determination and his evident inability to execute it, that his attitude impressed his audience less with its heroism than its half-pathetic absurdity.

Mr. Hamlin laughed. But even then he suddenly felt the grasp of Gabriel relax, found himself slipping to his companion's feet, and the next moment was deposited carefully but ignominiously on the ground by Gabriel, who strode quietly and composedly up to the muzzle of the sheriff's pistol.

"I am ready to go with ye, Mr. Hall," he said, gently, putting the pistol aside with a certain large indifferent wave of the hand, "ready to go with ye – now – at onct! But I've one little favour to ax ye. This yer pore young man, ez yur wounded, unbeknownst," he said, pointing to Hamlin, who was writhing and gritting his teeth in helpless rage and fury, "ez not to be tuk with me, nor for me! Thar ain't nothin' to be done to him. He hez been dragged inter this fight. But I'm ready to go with ye now, Mr. Hall, and am sorry you got into the troubil along o' me."

BOOK VII.

THE BED ROCK

CHAPTER I.

IN THE TRACK OF A STORM

A quarter of an hour before the messenger of Peter Dumphy had reached Poinsett's office, Mr. Poinsett had received a more urgent message. A telegraph despatched from San Antonio had been put into his hands. Its few curt words, more significant to an imaginative man than rhetorical expression, ran as follows: —

"Mission Church destroyed. Father Felipe safe. Blessed Trinity in ruins and Dolores missing. My house spared. Come at once. – Maria Sepulvida."

The following afternoon at four o'clock Arthur Poinsett reached San Geronimo, within fifteen miles of his destination. Here the despatch was confirmed with some slight local exaggeration.

"Saints and devils! There is no longer a St. Anthony! The temblor has swallowed him!" said the innkeeper, sententiously. "It is the end of all! Such is the world. Thou wilt find stones on stones instead of houses, Don Arturo. Wherefore another glass of the brandy of France, or the whisky of the American, as thou dost prefer. But of San Antonio – nothing! – Absolutely – perfectly – truly nothing!"

In spite of this cheering prophecy, Mr. Poinsett did not wait for the slow diligence, but mounting a fleet mustang dashed off in quest of the missing Mission. He was somewhat relieved at the end of an hour by the far-off flash of the sea, the rising of the dark green fringe of the Mission orchard and Encinal, and above it the white dome of one of the Mission towers. But at the next moment Arthur checked his horse and rubbed his eyes in wonder. Where was the other tower? He put spurs to his horse again and dashed off at another angle, and again stopped and gazed. There was but one tower remaining. The Mission Church must have been destroyed!

Perhaps it was this discovery, perhaps it was some instinct stronger than this; but when Arthur had satisfied himself of this fact he left the direct road, which would have brought him to the Mission, and diverged upon the open plain towards the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity. A fierce wind from the sea swept the broad llano and seemed to oppose him, step by step – a wind so persistent and gratuitous that it appeared to Arthur to possess a moral quality, and as such was to be resisted and overcome by his superior will. Here, at least, all was unchanged; here was the dead, flat monotony of land and sky. Here was the brittle, harsh stubble of the summer fields, sun-baked and wind-dried; here were the long stretches of silence, from which even the harrying wind made no opposition nor complaint; here were the formless specks of slowly-moving cattle, even as he remembered them before. A momentary chill came over him as he recalled his own perilous experience on these plains, a momentary glow suffused his cheek as he thought of his rescue by the lovely but cold recluse. Again he heard the name of "Philip" softly whispered in his ears, again he felt the flood of old memories sweep over him as he rode, even as he had felt them when he lay that day panting upon the earth. And yet Arthur had long since convinced his mind that he was mistaken in supposing that Donna Dolores had addressed him at that extreme moment as "Philip;" he had long since believed it was a trick of his disordered and exhausted brain; the conduct of Dolores towards himself, habitually restrained by grave courtesy, never justified him in directly asking the question, nor suggested any familiarity that might have made it probable. She had never alluded to it again – but had apparently forgotten it. Not so Arthur! He had often gone over that memorable scene, with a strange, tormenting pleasure that was almost a pain. It was the one incident of his life, for whose poetry he was not immediately responsible – the one genuine heart-thrill whose sincerity he had not afterwards stopped to question in his critical fashion, the one enjoyment that had not afterwards appeared mean and delusive. And now the heroine of this episode was missing, and he might never perhaps see her again! And yet when he first heard the news he was conscious of a strange sense of relief – rather let me say of an awakening from a dream, that though delicious, had become dangerous and might unfit him for the practical duties of his life. Donna Dolores had never affected him as a real personage – at least the interest he felt in her was, he had always considered, due to her relations to some romantic condition of his mind, and her final disappearance from the plane of his mental vision was only the exit of an actress from the mimic stage. It seemed only natural that she should disappear as mysteriously as she came. There was no shock even to the instincts of his ordinary humanity – it was no catastrophe involving loss of life or even suffering to the subject or spectator.

Such at least was Mr. Poinsett's analysis of his own mental condition on the receipt of Donna Maria's telegram. It was the cool self-examination of a man who believed himself cold-blooded and selfish, superior to the weakness of ordinary humanity, and yet was conscious of neither pride nor disgrace in the belief. Yet when he diverged from his direct road to the Mission, and turned his horse's head toward the home of Donna Dolores, he was conscious of a new impulse and anxiety that was stronger than his reason. Unable as he was to resist it, he still took some satisfaction in believing that it was nearly akin to that feeling which years before had driven him back to Starvation Camp in quest of the survivors. Suddenly his horse recoiled with a bound that would have unseated a less skilful rider. Directly across his path stretched a chasm in the level plain – thirty feet broad and as many feet in depth, and at its bottom in undistinguishable confusion lay the wreck of the corral of the Blessed Trinity!

Except for the enormous size and depth of this fissure Arthur might have mistaken it for the characteristic cracks in the sunburnt plain, which the long dry summer had wrought upon its surface, some of which were so broad as to task the agility of his horse. But a second glance convinced him of the different character of the phenomenon. The earth had not cracked asunder nor separated, but had sunk. The width of the chasm below was nearly equal to the width above; the floor of this valley in miniature was carpeted by the same dry, brittle herbs and grasses which grew upon the plain around him.

In the pre-occupation of the last hour he had forgotten the distance he had traversed. He had evidently ridden faster than he had imagined. But if this was really the corral, the walls of the Rancho should now be in sight at the base of the mountain! He turned in that direction. Nothing was to be seen! Only the monotonous plain stretched before him, vast and unbroken. Between the chasm where he stood and the falda of the first low foot-hills neither roof nor wall nor ruin rose above the dull, dead level!

An ominous chill ran through his veins, and for an instant the reins slipped through his relaxed fingers. Good God! Could this have been what Donna Maria meant, or had there been a later convulsion of Nature? He looked around him. The vast, far-stretching plain, desolate and trackless as the shining ocean beyond, took upon itself an awful likeness to that element! Standing on the brink of the revealed treachery of that yawning chasm, Arthur Poinsett read the fate of the Rancho. In the storm that had stirred the depths of this motionless level, the Rancho and its miserable inmates had foundered and gone down!

Arthur's first impulse was to push on towards the scene of the disaster, in the vague hope of rendering some service. But the chasm before him was impassable, and seemed to continue to the sea beyond. Then he reflected that the catastrophe briefly told in Donna Maria's despatch had happened twenty-four hours before, and help was perhaps useless now. He cursed the insane impulse that had brought him here, aimlessly and without guidance, and left him powerless even to reach the object of his quest. If he had only gone first to the Mission, asked the advice and assistance of Father Felipe, or learned at least the full details of the disaster! He uttered an oath, rare to his usual calm expression, and wheeling his horse, galloped fiercely back towards the Mission.

Night had deepened over the plain. With the going down of the sun a fog that had been stealthily encompassing the coast-line stole with soft step across the shining beach, dulled its lustre, and then moved slowly and solemnly upon the plain, blotting out the Point of Pines, at first salient with its sparkling Lighthouse, but now undistinguishable from the grey sea above and below, until it reached the galloping horse and its rider, and then, as it seemed to Arthur, isolated them from the rest of the world – from even the pencilled outlines of the distant foot-hills, that it at last sponged from the blue-grey slate before him. At times the far-off tolling of a fog-bell came faintly to his ear, but all sound seemed to be blotted out by the fog; even the rapid fall of his horse's hoofs was muffled and indistinct. By degrees the impression that he was riding in a dream overcame him, and was accepted by him without questioning or deliberation.

It seemed to be a consistent part of the dream or vision when he rode – or rather as it seemed to him, was borne by the fog – into the outlying fields and lanes of the Mission. A few lights, with a nimbus of fog around them, made the narrow street of the town appear still more ghostly and unreal as he plunged through its obscurity towards the plaza and church. Even by the dim grey light he could see that one of the towers had fallen, and that the eastern wing and Refectory were a mass of shapeless ruin. And what would at another time have excited his surprise now only struck him as a natural part of his dream, – the church a blaze of light and filled with thronging worshippers! Still possessed by his strange fancy, Arthur Poinsett dismounted, led his horse beneath the shed beside the remaining tower, and entered the building. The body and nave of the church were intact; the outlandish paintings still hung from the walls; the waxen effigies of the Blessed Virgin and the saints still leaned from their niches, yellow and lank, and at the high altar Father Felipe was officiating. As he entered a dirge broke from the choir; he saw that the altar and its offerings were draped in black, and in the first words uttered by the priest Arthur recognised the mass for the dead! The feverish impatience that had filled his breast and heightened the colour of his cheeks for the last hour was gone. He sunk upon a bench beside one of the worshippers and buried his face in his hands. The voice of the organ rose again faintly; the quaint-voiced choir awoke, the fumes of incense filled the church, and the monotonous accents of the priest fell soothingly upon his ear, and Arthur seemed to sleep. I say seemed to sleep, for ten minutes later he came to himself with a start as if awakening from a troubled dream, with the voice of Padre Felipe in his ear, and the soft, caressing touch of Padre Felipe on his shoulder. The worshippers had dispersed, the church was dark save a few candles still burning on the high altar, and for an instant he could not recall himself.

"I knew you would come, son," said Padre Felipe; "but where is she? Did you bring her with you?"

"Who?" asked Arthur, striving to recall his scattered senses.

"Who? Saints preserve us, Don Arturo! She who sent for you – Donna Maria! Did you not get her message?"

Arthur replied that he had only just arrived, and had at once hastened to the Mission. For some reason that he was ashamed to confess he did not say that he had tried to reach the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity, nor did he admit that he had forgotten for the last two hours even the existence of Donna Maria. "You were having a mass for the dead, Father Felipe? – you have then suffered here?"

He paused anxiously, for in his then confused state of mind he doubted how much of his late consciousness had been real or visionary.

"Mother of God," said Father Felipe, eyeing Arthur curiously. "You know not then for whom was this mass? You know not that a saint has gone – that Donna Dolores has at last met her reward?"

"I have heard – that is, Donna Maria's despatch said – that she was missing," stammered Arthur, feeling, with a new and unsupportable disbelief in himself, that his face was very pale and his voice uncertain.

"Missing!" echoed Father Felipe, with the least trace of impatience in his voice. "Missing! She will be found when the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity is restored – when the ruins of the casa, sunk fifty feet below the surface, are brought again to the level of the plain. Missing, Don Arturo! – ah! – missing indeed! – for ever! always, entirely!"

Moved perhaps by something in Arthur's face, Padre Felipe sketched in a few graphic pictures the details of the catastrophe already forecast by Arthur. It was a repetition of the story of the sunken corral. The earthquake had not only levelled the walls of the Rancho of the Blessed Trinity, but had opened a grave-like chasm fifty feet below it, and none had escaped to tell the tale. The faithful vaqueros had rushed from the trembling and undulating plain to the Rancho, only to see it topple into a yawning abyss that opened to receive it. Don Juan, Donna Dolores, the faithful Manuela, and Alejandro, the major domo, with a dozen peons and retainers, went down with the crumbling walls. No one had escaped. Was it not possible to dig in the ruins for the bodies? Mother of God! had not Don Arturo been told that the earth at the second shock had closed over the sunken ruins, burying beyond mortal resurrection all that the Rancho contained? They were digging, but hopelessly – a dozen men. They might – weeks hence – discover the bodies – but who knows?

The meek, fatalistic way that Father Felipe accepted the final doom of Donna Dolores exasperated Arthur beyond bounds. In San Francisco a hundred men would have been digging night and day in the mere chance of recovering the buried family. Here – but Arthur remembered the sluggish, helpless retainers of Salvatierra, the dreadful fatalism which affected them on the occurrence of this mysterious catastrophe, even as shown in the man before him, their accepted guide and leader – and shuddered. Could anything be done? Could he not, with Dumphy's assistance, procure a gang of men from San Francisco? And then came the instinct of caution, always powerful with a nature like Arthur's. If these people, most concerned in the loss of their friends, their relations, accepted it so hopelessly, what right had he – a mere stranger – to interfere?