The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 25, 1906, Page 2

ill be conclud- ed in next Sunds followed om yons has taken h d vigorous way—Iife p in otner ianas nature and man have pressed by its vast indifference, cowered ended thelr struggle for supremacy. Man beneath its remote, unfamiliar stars, As they passed across it théy mined a littie; here and there they scrapel surface, clustered round a stream bed for a day or two and sent the water circling But California, the land of With the west- cross-streets. he paced onward in an absorbed reverie, striking the cracks in the vement with the tip of his cane, Pres- he looked up above the housetops, sown with great, It was early night; only the Once or twice n looking up, he laughed, at himself and the follies he had committed. When he reached his own room in the r's Hotel he found Rion’s answer Standing under the feeble sitting-room It was short, for eves down has conquered and nature, 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 She laps him round with com- fort, whispers her secrets to him, reveals herself in sweet, sylvan intercourse. he, cozlly content, knows her as his lov- ing elave, o more rebellious, happy to the widths of sky in their pans. promise, ‘was their goal. ern sun in their eyes they looked at the mountain wall and spoke of the Eldorado beyond where the gold lay yellow in the and flecked with glittering flakes the prospector’s pan. That was in forty-nine. Ten years later they were hurrying backward over the to the streams that drain Nevada had its wealth too, a hidden, rock-ribbed wealth, jeal- They tore it out, built a city of tents and shacks as they delved, and In ten vears more were gone again, dispersed over the far West, like the em- bers of fire which a wind scatters. Then once again the barren State drew them back. Deep in the roots of Mount Davidson one of the greatest ore-bodles in the world lay burled. gathered in their might. assayer, stock-jobber, manipulator, man- ager and millionaire poured over the mountain wall, bringing in their train the birds of prey that follow In the wake of the mining army. and cabins grew into a city of streets and buildings and spread, climbing the moun- tain side in terraces. A raflroadserawled perilously to it, looping over the mountain In e cleared nook by & river the smoke of its mills blackened the sky. Isolated from the rest of the world, en- circled by desolation, the town sesthed and ‘bofled with an abnormal activi voleano of life in_the midst of a land. About it the desert brooded, press- ing in upon it, watching and waliting. To it the litfle city was:.an outside’ thing, hostlle, alien, unwelcome. It scorned the y passions of its men and women, no sympathy with the extravagances ¥ ‘When they had been’ biushed away like an ant-hill by ‘a’ passing foot, it would sweep over thelr town, obliterate their traces, reclaim its And once again the silence of a landscape where there is neither ripple of water nor murmur of leaf would resettle in crystal quietude. larger stars were visible. as he walked raising his eyes But in Nevada nature is still uncon- quered, savage and supreme. primordial world, with man a shivering stranger amid its grim aloofness. the voice of God went out into the dark- ness and sald, “Let there be light,” the startled life, cowering In caves and be- have looked out on such a land—an unwatered waste, tree- held in an immemorial light that fell chapdelier he read it. Rion was but a poor correspondent. The secretary of the Cresta Plata would be vacant on January The Gracey boys would be flattered if one of ‘James Parrish's reputation and position would care to fill it. would be $500 a month, The colonel turned the letter over, eye- The heaviness of his spirit was Mount Davidson, ously burfed. neath rocks, may Man as we know him has no place here. He is a speck moving between the dome of sky and the floor of earth. has watched him dle and whitened his bones in a few blazing The seed he plants withers in its kernel, the earth he turns up, frosted with "alkall, drops apart in livid flakes. The rare rivers by which he pitches his tent are sucked into the soil, as though grudging him the few drops with which' he cools his burning throat. from a later age he is an Intruder here. These solemn wastes and eternal hills have not yet learned to call him master. When the ploneers trailed across it Ne- vada was to them only ‘‘the desert,” a place where the horrors of heat and thirst They knew it as a sterile, gray expanse, breaking here and there into parched baréness, and with lines of lilac-blue or reddish purple hills seeming to march with- them'as they moved. From high places they saw it outspread like a map, its surface stippled with sage 4and the long green ribbon. of a tree- fringed rjver looping across At evening it took on limpid, The hills turned trans- parent sapphire and amethyst, the sky burned a thin, clear red.. An unbroken stlllness lay upon it and struck chill on the hearts of the little bands who, op- secmed to feel the strong grip of the min- ing man’s hand, to meet the searching look of his - keen, would -all be together in Virginia—not such a bad beginning for a new life at This time they honhest eyes. scorns him, Miner, engineer, ‘and take it Allen @id not END OF BOOK II BOORK II1I, i The Fesert. A s S gl The city of tents Bee Spencer as soon nd I'll give you satisfaction the mortgage 1 hed by it and , where his hat and coat e feeble words of CHAPTER 1. The mountain wall of the Sierra bounds California on its eastern side. rt, towering and impregnable, be- the garden and the desert. brooded over by cloud,-glittering sted snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swimming in un- fathomable shadow, to where, vast, pale, far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lles California, the garden. t for your daughters I'd corner begging not drop one in of their money sem-like colors. On the other side e N D BTV ITI AT < < 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_flercely stimulating to effort and achlevement, that average human beings were lifted from their places and be- came creatures of dauntless Initlative. They conquered the unconquerable, ac- complished triumphs of daring and ingen- gb where under ordinary circumstances 6y would have recolled before insuper- able obstacles. They were outside them- selves, larger for good or evil than they had ever been before or would be again. Nature had dared them to her vanquish- ing and they had risen to the challenge. In the spring of 1874 .ae ferment inei- dent to the opeuing of the great ore- body that has gone down In history as the “Big Bononza” began to bubble to- ward bolling: point. Month by month stocks had - steadily risen, and month by month ~the huge treas- uré chamber, filled with silver as a nut s with kernel, devel- oped in ever Increasing richness. The city was packed close .as a hive with bees with twenty-five thousand souls all quivering to the increasing momentum of the excitement. The mines were a dy- namo whence electrio vibrations spread into the world outside. The dwellers in huts among the sage were shaken by them. They thrilled along the Pacific slope. In New York and London men felt them and thelr pulses quickened. The Bonanza times were nearly at the flood. The ¢ity grew with astonishing rapidity, breathlessly climbed the side of Mount - Davidson in ascending tlers of streets. - There was no time for grading or paving. Two storles in the front meant four dn the back, the kitchens of B street looked over the shingled ropfs of the shops on \C street. It was a,gray town, clinging to a desolate mountain side, in a gray country. At its base, appearing to force it up the slope, were the joisting works of ‘the ‘mirnes, dotted so closer 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 wilderness. And as the ant-hill swarmed and trembled with -rolled the wild, bare landsca; -satisfactory as they had been, but the fury of its concentrated life, the desert looked on, serene, incurious, still CHAPTER IL 01d Friends With New Faces. The Allen girls moved to Virginia Clty in April. Their father had gone there ‘early in the year and taken a house which would be a proper and fitting place from which to marry Rosamund. He had found what he thought suitable in the mansion, -as they called it in Virginia City, of one Murchison, & mining superin- tendent, who, in the heyday of sudden riches, had built him & comfortable home and then died. > The Murchison mansion had come on the market just at the right moment, Allen told people: Men wondered 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 himself spread the story that successful speculations had once again get him on his feet. That something had done so was proved by his renting of the Murchison mansion, a furnished house in the Virginia City of that period beipg an expensive luxury. It stood at the soutlr end of B street, perched high on the ‘top .of two sloping terraces which were bulkheaded by a wooden wall, surmounted by an or- namental balustrade. Bmall frutt trees and flowering shrubs olothed the terraces In a fiickert: fo- liage, just showing its first, :ztnt mn of green when the girls arrived. A long flight of steps ran up to & balceny, which rounded out about the front deor, and upon which one seemed to mounted high in the alr, looking down over a drop- ping series of flat and where the dn{ red neys of the holsting about the city’s feet, ~.Beyond this ug- undulat- ing line of mountain beyond mountain, cut clear as cameos against the blue Ne- vada sky. The vivid green s made by the Carson River gleamed to the t, At the limit of sight, fitted into a gap be- tween the hills, was the Carson Desert, a patch of stark, yellow sand. The girls were not surprised at the style:of the house. They knew vaguely that their father’s affairs were not -; o their truly desperate nature they had no suspicion. There were delays in the sale of the Folsom-street property, and it was not fill March that the new tenant ap- peared from Sacramento to take posses- slon. In response to their father's or- ders they obedlently gathered together their belongings, closed the houss and made the move to Virginia without as- sistance from him. Events had fallex together in an 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 Jérry's marriage and hear the sound of his wed- ding bells. But before that event cir- cumstances had developed which made radical ghanges in the plans of the bride and groom. Black Dan had discovered that Jerry’'s business had dwindled to nothing, his private fortune vanished in the Crown Point collapse. The bonanza king, with his rapldly accumulating mil- lions, had a sturdy, American objection to an idle man, especially when that man was to be the husband of his only child. \ ure-loving “temp made for Je duties suffictent rough i ¢ ta miners p her in San Franect a queen o him obc¢ doting father was troubied about the future of his child. He a1 marriage she was making, but to protest agal mistrusted J often heard AV as a charmer of women, wanted the pair under his eye. ed to keep his hand tight law. He did not believ loved Mercedes, and he took fsfaction In bringing him to V1 setting him to work “Rion and ¥ can watch him,” to himsell. “We'll keep Mis n grindstone, and If he shows any sym of lifting it we'll hold it closer.” Slack Dan sald littléiof his uneasiness o any one save his brot The two men ha same opinion of ‘Jerry, and ther expressed it to the other doubts as to the happiness to his new @ installed tn which hastily refitted for eart of & biting Ne- use on B street thelr martied life began. Netther nor groom guessed that it was be watched by three pairs of interested eyes o ob- servation kb Graceys that of Ci ed. He, too, Had come to Virginia on the first of January to assume his p assistant secretary of the He and’ Rion had settled them comfortable quarters over Caswell's drug e T rooms gave on a balustraded wooden veranda which looked out on street. It was not from Jérry but from Mer- gedes that the first sigms of discontent came. She had hated Virginia from the first gl v bufféted by furfous winds bare mountain side, m little soul shrank before the loneline the silent She was essentlal Southron, a lover of sunshine, brig ors and gayety. Moreover, for the first time in her life, she felt neglected h the turmotl of C women. softer sex w a diversion ar cedes was often | himself into the s time with fury. pregccupied and abr s in t lions Is, after a meost absorbing pastime that man may- know. Finally a dellcacy of g throat deve oped, and Mercedes looked pale and thin and began to cough. It was April, she had been marriell fopr months and she wanted to go: she wanted San Francisco and sunshine and the amusements for which she lived. Jerry afd The dream of passion was at an end. The Mercedes he had come to know in the intimacy of married life was so different a being from the Mercede ho had beguiled him in the summer 4 haye her leave him. and he felt angry and but he had no peigna loved. The had drawn them together were satiated. Her woman's s A worked itself out. His lust for her wealth, his desire for her possession were satisfled. They were will- ing to part. She left In April, it being understood that Jerry was to “go below” to ses hgr every . two weeks. The ptory that l& health had been impaired by a climate which had proved too severs for many be- fore her was given out as the reason for her departure. Black Dan even was made. to belleve it. He also belleved her assurances, that she would return in the summer. He| thought the few tears she shed were grief at vuunf th & husband whom he supposed she loved, Mo determined to watch Jerry cloger than ever, and*for this purpose moved into the house on B street, where {h¢ husband now left alone. Thus it fell out fapr June that she was spared the sight of J as a joyous bridegroom. Almost simul- tanecusly with the Alleng" move to Vip- ginia, Mercedes left i, June and Rose- mund were arrangiug the Murchison man- sion on: B strest when Mrs. Jerome Bape clay was beginning those eytemsive pupe chases in San Francisco which were to render hier home on Van Ness avenus & truly “palatial residence.” June saw her old lover often. The contracted size of the town made it jme possible for her to aveld him. Mory once they encountered each other in the houses of friends, and were forced to in- terchange the little dead phrases of so- clety. Both wers shaken by these ace cidental meetings. June dreaded and shrank from the sight of his face and the sound of his volce; but Jerry went away from her presence stirred and uplifted, his mind full of the thought of her, his sense of her charm reawnkened. His life, crowded with the strenuous business of men, was empty of what h been for years its main interest and pre- pocupation. The vain man, confident of his attractions, had been played with and scornfully cast aside. The bitterness of his marriage was as wormwood to him. He felt sore toward Mercedes, whose in- difference toward him had roused in him the angry amaze that a spoiled child feels toward the stranger who is proof agal fts blandishments. He fe hims wronged, and In a way, trapped Th made him work like a day laborer for salary, and his wife had left him. T was what he'd got by marrying! Lupe, oor, dead Lupe, woyld not have trea m so! And June—what a fool he'd be He forgot that June had no money, for that reason he had put her resolutely aside. He forgot that last ‘year he had avolded her and trfed to banish all thought of her. In his lofiging for the adulation and tenderness upon which he had Itved her # nearer and nearer, grew more and more disturbing and sweet. Carly in May Rosamund week's visit to San Fr: plish the maljor na buying. June, left sion to “keep hou performed but 4 n that left for a the coming loss of heavier every day d her her life was qulet and colorless. She thmult ar