66 Well I know the trail up to the cedars, On the brake-decked sandstone brown Heart, swing down behind the clattering cattle, Breaking from the pine tree bough; Sing it, bird, oh, sing it now: Sing the rapture of the free and fragrant hills! Hear, sad heart, the calling of the throstle, Larkspur, Cal. THE GULL. By AMELIA DOMINIQUE SMITH. VER the waves I fly, I fly, Swift as the clouds a-chasing by, Leaps my heart when the wind is strong, Blowing me and the clouds along. Blue above, Below me green, I-a live white speck between ! Oh, the salt sweet breath of the sea. The singing waves with their song for me, Oh, the life of a bird at sea! Mists all great and soft and white Wrap me oftentimes at night; Times, a great white light will shine I float and swing Dreaming oft, tho' still a-wing! Days there are when I soar and try To pierce the cloud-ships sailing by Up and up to the Higher Blue That sea with the gold-light shining thro' That shines so fair To dip my breast in the waters there! Redlands, Cal. THE TRUSCOTT LUCK. By MARY AUSTIN. CHAPTER VII. O explain how it was that mother, who could scarcely be persuaded farther away from home than the end of our meadow, came riding into the hills behind us on the morning that we found the treasure under the picture-rock, I must go back to the time when Beatty first came to us. We were several days straightening out the details of that matter, and even then much of it was conjecture, so I doubt not I shall make poor work telling it. The parcel of letters which Beatty took from the dead man in his cabin in Calaveras is still in my mother's possession, a dozen or more of them, taken out of their envelopes for convenience and bound with a rubber band. From them Beatty had the man's name and some further clue to his identity. As for the dying speech that Beatty quoted to us, it was likely to have been true, but coming through him none of us could place any dependence on its being so. I do not know how soon he began to have an inkling of the real situation, but it must have been very soon after his coming to Black Rock; as soon as in the wheedling sympathetic way he had, he had gotten from my mother all the particulars of my father's disappearance. It was not, however, until he became certain that Mac also was upon the trail of the buried money that he began to take any measures to secure himself against the mischance of our finding it. The first step was to get into my mother's good graces. For this he had but to lead her on by careful hints to believe that my father's lost fortune might yet be recovered. He professed to believe that the money was yet lying in some bank, accumulating interest against the day she claimed it, declared that it needed but a good head for business, which my mother protested she never had, to unravel that coil; made her think he was the man for that business; managed so with his palaver that she herself asked him to undertake it; and further contrived that she should keep the matter a secret even from me. This last she was quite willing to do, partly from native reticence, and in part because all her friends had long given over any attempts in that direction as wasted pains. So Beatty got to know all of my mother's affairs, and to see all of my father's letters, though there was nothing in them that helped him much. What he got out of my mother about Mac's affairs I do not know, not much I think, though being a little doubtful on that score herself my mother could never be induced to speak of it. Now Beatty knew everything necessary to locate the fortune except the identical rock it was buried under. Indeed, we learned afterward that he had dug over a considerable part of the sand bank where we finally found it. From the close watch he kept upon Mac and me he must have surmised that Mac had the missing clew, and resolved to have it out of him. Failing this, he conceived the idea of marrying my mother and so making himself secure; and if that failed he could still put evidence in her hands that would rob Mac of every penny of the dearly sought treasure; for Beatty had just that touch of viciousness that made him unwilling to see another enjoy what he had lost. I do Mr. Beatty the justice to believe that he would have been glad to marry my mother on her own account. She was very comely in the Cornish fashion, with bright dark eyes, and a fresh color such as is not often seen in the rainless West. Add to that that she was a good cook and known to be forehanded, and in a country where there are ten men to one woman, it is small wonder she was much courted. Indeed it was only the fear of ridicule that kept me from doing myself an injury against Ike Mallory's fists because of the jests he made about her many admirers. We had never spoken of it, but I knew as well as if she had told me, that as long as any doubt remained as to my father's end my mother would never marry again. The day before Mac and I started for the picture-rock Beatty was away at Posada getting a horse shod, returning late at night and getting up late to find us gone. But the excitement which we had not been quite able to conceal ever since the discovery of the amulet and the red hill, had in a manner prepared him, and Mr. Beatty lost no time in bringing his plans to a conclusion. He got my mother away from her work somehow, under the cottonwood trees, and asked her in very plain terms to marry him. I think this was not the first time of his asking, but my mother was always rather mum on that point; at any rate she refused him point blank, and Mr. Beatty taking his refusal in a very gentlemanly spirit, hoped that on that account she would not deny him the right to serve her as a friend. He would be glad, he said, for her sake to go on with the work of recovering my father's fortune, of which, he hinted, he had now some certain clew. Then Beatty made what from his point of view was a great mistake. He said that he could not move again in that matter without being properly empowered by my mother, and drew out a paper, a contract or power of attorney, or some such matter, which he had had prepared in Posada the day before. My mother was simple enough in business matters, and he might have entrapped her on any less important occasion. But now at the show he made of it, and the sound of the legal phrases as he rolled them out to her, her Cornish caution was up in arms. She was frightened and suspicious, and perhaps in a little bit of a temper as well; and Mr. Beatty was left in no doubt as to her sentiments. At this he considered a long while with his back to my mother and his fingers working nervously in the pockets of his coat. Finally he turned back to her with the air of a man with a serious matter to deliver. "Mrs. Truscott," he said, "I have that to say to you which has been too long delayed, but from no other purpose than to spare you anxiety. It concerns us both, and your son and Mr. Macnamar." At that my mother flashed out, "I will hear nothing against my son, Mr. Beatty, nor his friends." "You will hear nothing except what is for your good. You know," he asked, "what business they are about, off in the hills together?" My mother nodded, resolved not to commit herself by words. "Macnamar has told you? Well I'll warrant he has not told you any good of me, but we will let that pass. There is one thing he cannot have told you, that is the name of the man who died in our cabin in Calaveras, the name of the man whose fortune lies buried out there in the Coso hills, the name of the man whose wife and child I have worked to find, to give back their own to them, and find at last being duped by my partner-did he tell you that name?" "No, no," cried my mother wildly, getting on to her feet, "It cannot be; it is not." "It is," said Beatty, holding my mother's hands lest the shock should overcome her, "It is Henry Truscott. That was the name he gave me, and the name I found on his papers. me tell you about it." Then when my mother was calmed he went on. Let a little "It was near to midnight when the man came out of his fever and told me these things, his name and about the money he had buried here. He said he had started to San Francisco to meet his family, but having some time to spare, had turned out of his way to see the Calaveras boom, and an old sickness that he had before had come back to him. He thought then that he would die, and begged me to find his money for his wife and child. And I promised him. If I had thought he would really die I would have called some one, but he seemed quite strong — and in an hour he was dead. You see how it was, Mrs. Truscott; I did not know how to find you. I was not quite sure that I knew where to find your husband's money, but you may be sure that I felt it laid upon me to do both. But then there was my partner. Mr. Truscott had been raving for twenty-four hours, and had talked much about his money; how much more Mac had gotten out of him while I was out of the house I did not know. I had only one wish in the matter, and that was to find the money and put it in your hands. But if Macnamar did not agree with me there was nothing to prevent his going off to find it for himself. And that you see is just what he has done." When Mr. Beatty had said all this, very soberly, and in a manner not to be disbelieved, my mother fell into such a maze of doubt, and wonder, and suspicion, that she knew not what to say. So Beatty went on to tell her how he had come away in the night, fearing to trust his knowledge to Macnamar; how he had searched unsuccessfully for the money and for her; and having found her, how he had kept the whole matter from her until he could make sure of the fortune, hoping to spare her anxiety, and the better to keep watch upon Macnamar. 66 But you see," he finished with a very rueful air, “I have made a mess of it, I have not found it, and Macnamar probably will and be out of the country with it unless you take some steps to prevent him. You see he has outwitted me. I am afraid I am not very clever at dealing with that sort of people. Mrs. Truscott, you do right to be angry with me." But my mother was too much in a whirl to think whether she was angry or no. Whether Beatty or Mac was most to blame was not to be decided now; the thought that she clung to was that my father's fortune which she coveted for me was to be had for the picking up by the first comer. "Oh!" she cried, "they have gone to find it; they will find it today under the Indian rock with the writing on it. Oh, what shall I do ?" "The picture-rock by the white hill?" said Beatty. "How did they know?" But my mother only fell to weeping and wringing her hands, and though Beatty argued she would not be persuaded into anything, until at last he said he would take her there. It was a good three hours after we left before my mother and Beatty set out, and but for taking a shorter road they could not have come up with us so soon. And Mac and I stood there |