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+“The shining mountains,” said Gregory Compton softly, throwing back his
+head, his eyes travelling along the hard bright outlines above the high
+valley in which his ranch lay. “The shining mountains. That is what the
+Indians called them before the white man came.”
+His wife yawned frankly. “Pity they don’t shine inside as well as
+out--what we’ve got of ’em.”
+“Who knows? Who knows?”
+“We don’t. That’s the trouble.”
+But although she spoke tartly, she nestled into his arm, for she was
+not unamiable, she had been married but sixteen months, and she was
+still fond of her husband “in a way”; moreover, although she cherished
+resentments open and secret, she never forgot that she had won a
+prize “as men go.” Many girls in Butte[A] had wanted to marry Gregory
+Compton, not only because he had inherited a ranch of eleven hundred
+and sixty acres, but because, comprehensively, he was superior to the
+other young men of his class. He had graduated from the High School
+before he was sixteen; then after three years’ work on the ranch under
+his unimaginative father, he had announced his intention of leaving the
+State unless permitted to attend the School of Mines in Butte. The old
+man, who by this time had taken note of the formation of his son’s jaw,
+gave his consent rather than lose the last of his children; and for two
+years and a semester Gregory had been the most brilliant figure in the
+School of Mines.
+“Old Man Compton,” who had stampeded from his small farm in northern
+New York in the sixties to meet with little success in the mines, but
+more as a rancher, had been as typical a hayseed as ever punctuated
+politics with tobacco juice in front of a corner grocery-store, but
+had promised his wife on her death-bed that their son should have
+“schooling.” Mrs. Compton, who had arrived in Montana soon after the
+log house was built, was a large, dark, silent woman, whom none of
+her distant neighbours had ever claimed to know. It was currently
+believed in the New York village whence she came that in the early days
+of the eighteenth century the sturdy Verrooy stock had been abruptly
+crossed by the tribe of the Oneida. Ancient history in a new country
+is necessarily enveloped in mist, but although the children she had
+lost had been fair and nondescript like their father, her youngest, and
+her only son, possessed certain characteristics of the higher type of
+Indian. He was tall and lightly built, graceful, supple, swift of foot,
+with the soft tread of the panther; and although his skin was no darker
+than that of the average brunette, it acquired significance from the
+intense blackness of his hair, the thin aquiline nose, the long, narrow
+eyes, the severe and stolid dignity of expression even in his earlier
+years.
+He had seemed to the girls of the only class he knew in Butte an
+even more romantic figure than the heroes of their magazine fiction,
+particularly as he took no notice of them until he met Ida Hook at a
+picnic and surrendered his heart.
+Ida, forced by her thrifty mother to accept employment with a
+fashionable dressmaker, and consumed with envy of the “West Siders”
+whose measurements she took, did not hesitate longer than feminine
+prudence dictated. Before she gave her hair its nightly brushing her
+bold unpedantic hand had covered several sheets of pink note-paper with
+the legend, “Mrs. Gregory Compton,” the while she assured herself there
+was “no sweller name on West Broadway.” To do her justice, she also
+thrilled with young passion, for more than her vanity had responded
+to the sombre determined attentions of the man who had been the
+indifferent hero of so many maiden dreams. Although she longed to be a
+Copper Queen, she was too young to be altogether hard; and, now that
+her hour was come, every soft enchantment of her sex awoke to bind and
+blind her mate.
+Gregory Compton’s indifference to women had been more pretended than
+real, although an occasional wild night on The Flat had interested him
+far more than picnics and dances where the girls used no better grammar
+than the “sporting women” and were far less amusing. He went to this
+picnic to please his old school friend, Mark Blake, and because Nine
+Mile Cañon had looked very green and alluring after the June rains when
+he had ridden through it alone the day before. The moment he stood
+before Ida Hook, staring into the baffling limpid eyes, about which
+heavy black lashes rose and fell and met and tangled and shot apart in
+a series of bedevilling manœuvres, he believed himself to be possessed
+by that intimate soul-seeking desire that nothing but marriage can
+satisfy. He kept persistently at her side, his man’s instinct prompting
+the little attentions women value less than they demand. He also took
+more trouble to interest her verbally than was normal in one whom
+nature had prompted to silence, and he never would learn the rudiments
+of small talk; but his brain was humming in time with his eager
+awakened pulses, and Ida was too excited and exultant to take note of
+his words. “It was probably about mines, anyway,” she confided to her
+friends, Ruby and Pearl Miller. “Nobody talks about anything else long
+in this old camp.”
+Gregory’s infatuation was by no means reduced by the fact that no less
+than six young men contended for the favour of Miss Hook. She was the
+accredited beauty of Butte, for even the ladies of the West Side had
+noticed and discussed her and hoped that their husbands and brothers
+had not. It was true that her large oval blue-grey eyes, set like
+Calliope’s, were as shallow as her voice; but the lids were so broad
+and white, and the lashes so silky and oblique, that the critical
+faculty of man was drugged, if dimly prescient. Her cheeks were a
+trifle too full, her nose of a type unsung in marble; but what of that
+when her skin was as white as milk, the colour in cheek and lips of a
+clear transparent coral, that rarest and most seductive of nature’s
+reds, her little teeth enamelled like porcelain? And had she not every
+captivating trick, from active eyelash to the sudden toss of her small
+head on its long round throat, even to the dilating nostril which made
+her nose for the moment look patrician and thin! Her figure, too, with
+its boyish hips, thin flexible waist, and full low bust, which she
+carried with a fine upright swing, was made the most of in a collarless
+blouse, closely fitting skirt, and narrow dark belt.
+Miss Hook, although her expression was often wide-eyed and innocent,
+was quite cynically aware of her power over the passions of men. More
+than one man of high salary or recent fortune had tried to “annex”
+her, as she airily put it; her self-satisfaction and the ever-present
+sophistications of a mining town saving her from anything so gratuitous
+as outraged maidenhood.
+The predatory male and his promises had never tempted her, and it
+was her boast that she had never set foot in the road houses of The
+Flat. She had made up her mind long since to live on the West Side,
+the fashionable end of Butte, and was wise enough, to quote her own
+words, to know that the straight and narrow was the only direct route.
+Ambition, her sleepless desire to be a grand dame (which she pronounced
+without any superfluous accent), was stronger than vanity or her
+natural love of pleasure. By the ordinary romantic yearnings of her
+age and sex she was unhampered; but when she met Gregory Compton, she
+played the woman’s game so admirably the long day through that she
+brushed her heavy black hair at night quite satisfied he would propose
+when she gave him his chance. This she withheld for several days, it
+being both pleasant and prudent to torment him. He walked home with her
+every afternoon from the dressmaking establishment on North Main Street
+to her mother’s cottage in East Granite, to be dismissed at the gate
+coyly, reluctantly, indifferently, but always with a glance of startled
+wonder from the door.
+In the course of the week she gave him to understand that she should
+attend the Friday Night dance at Columbia Gardens, and expected him to
+escort her. Gregory, who by this time was reduced to a mere prowling
+instinct projected with fatal instantaneity from its napping ego, was
+as helpless a victim as if born a fool. He thought himself the most
+fortunate of men to receive permission to sit beside her on the open
+car during the long ride to the Gardens, to pay for the greater number
+of her waltzes, to be, in short, her beau for the night.
+The evening of Friday at Columbia Gardens is Society Night for all
+respectable Butte, irrespective of class; the best floor and the
+airiest hall in Silver Bow County proving an irresistible incentive to
+democracy. Moreover, Butte is a city of few resources, and the Gardens
+at night look like fairyland: the immense room is hung with Chinese
+lanterns depending from the rafters, the music is the best in Montana;
+and the richer the women, the plainer their frocks. A sort of informal
+propriety reigns, and millionaire or clerk pays ten cents for the
+privilege of dancing with his lady.
+Ida, who had expended five of her hard-earned dollars on a bottle
+of imported perfume, wore a white serge suit cut as well as any in
+“the grand dame bunch.” After the sixth waltz she draped her head and
+shoulders with a coral-pink scarf and led Gregory, despite the chill of
+June, out to his willing fate. The park was infested by other couples,
+walking briskly to keep themselves warm, and so were the picnic grounds
+where the cottonwoods and Canadian poplars were being coaxed to grow,
+now that the smelters which had reduced the neighbourhood of Butte to
+its bones had been removed to Anaconda.
+But farther up the cañon no one but themselves adventured, and here
+Gregory was permitted to ask this unique creature, provided with a new
+and maddening appeal to the senses, to renounce her kingdom and live on
+a ranch.
+It was all very crude, even to the blatant moon, which in the thin
+brilliant atmosphere of that high altitude swings low with an almost
+impudent air of familiarity, and grins in the face of sentiment.
+But to Gregory, who was at heart passionate and romantic, it was a
+soul-quickening scene: the blazing golden disk poised on the very crest
+of the steep mountain before them, the murmur of water, the rustling
+young leaves, the deep-breasted orientally perfumed woman with the
+innocent wondering eyes. The moon chuckled and reminded his exacting
+mistress, Nature, that were he given permission to scatter some of his
+vast experience instead of the seductive beams that had accumulated
+it, this young man with his natural distinction of mind, and already
+educated beyond his class, would enjoy a sudden clarity of vision and
+perceive the defects of grammar and breeding in this elemental siren
+with nothing but Evian instincts to guide her.
+But the dutiful old search-light merely whipped up the ancestral
+memories in Gregory’s subconscious brain; moreover, gave him courage.
+He made love with such passion and tenderness that Ida, for once
+elemental, clung to him so long and so ardently that the grinning
+moon whisked off his beam in disgust and retired behind a big black
+cloud--which burst shortly afterwards and washed out the car tracks.
+They were married in July, and Mrs. Hook, who had worked for forty
+years at tub and ironing-board, moved over to the dusty cemetery in
+September, at rest in the belief not only that her too good-looking
+daughter was safely “planted,” but was a supremely happy woman.
+Ida’s passion, however, had been merely a gust of youth, fed by
+curiosity and gratified ambition; it quickly passed in the many
+disappointments of her married life. Gregory had promised her a
+servant, but no “hired girl” could be induced to remain more than a
+week on the lonely De Smet Ranch; and Mrs. Compton’s temper finding
+its only relief in one-sided quarrels with her Chinese cooks, even the
+philosophical Oriental was prone to leave on a moment’s notice. There
+were three hired men and three in the family, after John Oakley came,
+to cook and “clean up” for, and there were weeks at a time when Ida
+was obliged to rise with the dawn and occupy her large and capable but
+daintily manicured hands during many hours of the day.
+Gregory’s personality had kindled what little imagination she had
+into an exciting belief in his power over life and its corollary, the
+world’s riches. Also, having in mind the old Indian legend of the great
+chief who had turned into shining gold after death and been entombed in
+what was now known prosaically as the De Smet Ranch, she had expected
+Gregory to “strike it rich” at once.
+But although there were several prospect holes on the ranch, dug
+by Gregory in past years, he had learned too much, particularly of
+geology, during his two years at the School of Mines to waste any more
+time digging holes in the valley or bare portions of the hills. If a
+ledge existed it was beneath some tangle of shrub or tree-roots, and he
+had no intention of denuding his pasture until he was prepared to sell
+his cattle.
+He told her this so conclusively a month after they were married that
+she had begged him to raise sugar beets and build a factory in Butte
+(which he would be forced to superintend), reminding him that the only
+factory in the State was in the centre of another district and near
+the southern border, and that sugar ranged from six to seven dollars a
+hundredweight. He merely laughed at this suggestion, although he was
+surprised at her sagacity, for, barring a possible democratic victory,
+there was room for two beet-sugar factories in Montana. But he had
+other plans, although he gave her no hint of them, and had no intention
+of complicating his life with an uncongenial and exacting business.
+By unceasing personal supervision he not only made the ranch profitable
+and paid a yearly dividend to his three aunts, according to the terms
+of his father’s will, but for the last two years, after replacing or
+adding to his stock, he had deposited a substantial sum in the bank,
+occasionally permitting his astute friend, Mark Blake, to turn over a
+few hundreds for him on the stock-market. This was the heyday of the
+American farmer, and the De Smet cattle brought the highest prices
+in the stock-yards for beef on the hoof. He also raised three crops
+of alfalfa a year to insure his live stock against the lean days of
+a Rocky Mountain winter. He admitted to Ida that he could afford to
+sink a shaft or drive a tunnel in one of his hills, but added that
+he should contemplate nothing of the sort until he had finished his
+long-delayed course in the School of Mines, and had thousands to throw
+away on development work, miners, and machinery. At this time he saw no
+immediate prospect of resuming the studies interrupted by the death of
+his father: until John Oakley came, eight months after his marriage, he
+knew of no foreman to trust but himself.
+Ida desired the life of the city for other reasons than its luxuries
+and distractions. Her fallow brain was shrewd and observing, although
+often crude in its deductions. She soon realised that the longer she
+lived with her husband the less she understood him. Like all ignorant
+women of any class she cherished certain general estimates of men,
+and in her own class it was assumed that the retiring men were weak
+and craven, the bold ones necessarily lacking in that refinement upon
+which their young lady friends prided themselves. Ida had found that
+Gregory, bold as his wooing had been, and arrogantly masculine as he
+was in most things, not only had his shynesses but was far more refined
+and sensitive than herself. She was a woman who prided herself upon
+her theories, and disliked having them upset; still more not knowing
+where she was at, to use her own spirited vernacular. She began to
+be haunted by the fear of making some fatal mistake, living, as she
+did, in comparative isolation with him. Not only was her womanly
+pride involved, as well as a certain affection born of habit and
+possible even to the selfish, rooted as it is in the animal function
+of maternity, but she had supreme faith in his future success and was
+determined to share it.
+She was tired, however, of attempting to fathom the intense reserves
+and peculiarities of that silent nature, of trying to live up to him.
+She was obliged to resort to “play-acting”; and, fully aware of her
+limitations, despite her keen self-appreciation, was in constant fear
+that she would “make a grand mess of it.” Gregory’s eyes could be very
+penetrating, and she had discovered that although he never told funny
+stories, nor appeared to be particularly amused at hers, he had his own
+sense of humour.
+II
+The young couple stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of Montana.
+The sky was as cold and bright as polished silver, but the low soft
+masses of cloud were blue, the glittering snow on the mountain peaks
+was blue, the smooth snow fields on the slopes and in the valley were
+blue. Nor was it the blue of azure or of sapphire, but a deep lovely
+cool polaric blue, born in the inverted depths of Montana, and forever
+dissociated from art.
+It was an extramundane scene, and it had drawn Gregory from his bed
+since childhood, but to Ida, brought up in a town, and in one whose
+horizons until a short while ago had always been obscured by the
+poisonous haze of smelters, and ores roasted in the open, it was
+“weird.” Novels had informed her that sunrises were pink, or, at the
+worst, grey. There was something mysterious in this cold blue dawn up
+in the snow fields, and she hated mystery. But as it appeared to charm
+Gregory, she played up to him when he “dragged” her out to look at it;
+and she endeavoured to do so this morning although her own ego was
+rampant.
+Gregory drew her closer, for she still had the power to enthrall him
+at times. He understood the resources within her shallows as little
+as she understood his depths, but although her defects in education
+and natural equipment had long since appalled him, he was generally
+too busy to think about her, and too masculine to detect that she was
+playing a part. This morning, although he automatically responded to
+her blandishments, he was merely sensible of her presence, and his
+eyes, the long watchful eyes of the Indian, were concentrated upon the
+blue light that poured from the clouds down upon the glistening peaks.
+Ida knew that this meant he was getting ready to make an announcement
+of some sort, and longed to shake it out of him. Not daring to outrage
+his dignity so far, she drew the fur robe that enveloped them closer
+and rubbed her soft hair against his chin. It was useless to ask him
+to deliver himself until he was “good and ready”, but the less direct
+method sometimes prevailed.
+Suddenly he came out with it.
+“I’ve made up my mind to go back to the School.”
+“Back to school--are you loony?”
+“The School of Mines, of course. I can enter the Junior Class where
+I left off; earlier in fact, as I had finished the first semester.
+Besides, I’ve been going over all the old ground since Oakley came.”
+“Is that what’s in all them books.”
+“Those, dear.”
+“Those. Mining Engineer’s a lot sweller than rancher.”
+“Please don’t use that word.”
+“Lord, Greg, you’re as particular as if you’d been brought up in Frisco
+or Chicago, instead of on a ranch.”
+He laughed outright and pinched her ear. “I use a good deal of slang
+myself--only, there are some words that irritate me--I can hardly
+explain. It doesn’t matter.”
+“Greg,” she asked with sudden suspicion, “why are you goin’ in for a
+profession? Have you given up hopes of strikin’ it rich on this ranch?”
+“Oh, I shall never relinquish that dream.” He spoke so lightly that
+even had she understood him better she could not have guessed that the
+words leapt from what he believed to be the deepest of his passions.
+“But what has that to do with it? If there is gold on the ranch I shall
+be more likely to discover it when I know a great deal more about
+geology than I do now, and better able to mine it cheaply after I have
+learned all I can of milling and metallurgy at the School. But that is
+not the point. There may be nothing here. I wish to graduate into a
+profession which not only attracts me more than any other, but in which
+the expert can always make a large income. Ranching doesn’t interest
+me, and with Oakley to----”
+“What woke you up so sudden?”
+“I have never been asleep.” But he turned away his head lest she see
+the light in his eyes. “Oakley gives me my chance to get out, that is
+all. And I am very glad for your sake----”
+“Aw!” Her voice, ringing out with ecstasy, converted the native
+syllable into music. “It means we are goin’ to live in Butte!”
+“Of course.”
+“And I was so took--taken by surprise it never dawned on me till this
+minute. Now what do you know about that?”
+“We shall have to be very quiet. I cannot get my degree until a year
+from June--a year and seven months from now. I shall study day and
+night, and work in the mines during the winter and summer vacations. I
+cannot take you anywhere.”
+“Lord knows it can’t be worse’n this. I’ll have my friends to talk to
+and there’s always the movin’ picture shows. Lord, how I’d like to see
+one.”
+“Well, you shall,” he said kindly. “I wrote to Mark some time ago and
+asked him to give the tenant of the cottage notice. As this is the
+third of the month it must be empty and ready for us.”
+“My goodness gracious!” cried his wife with pardonable irritation, “but
+you are a grand one for handin’ out surprises! Most husbands tell their
+wives things as they go along, but you ruminate like a cow and hand
+over the cud when you’re good and ready. I’m sick of bein’ treated as
+if I was a child.”
+“Please don’t look at it in that way. What is the use of talking about
+things until one is quite sure they can be accomplished?”
+“That’s half the fun of bein’ married,” said Ida with one of her
+flashes of intuition.
+“Is it?” Gregory turned this over in his mind, then, out of his own
+experience, rejected it as a truism. He could not think of any subject
+he would care to discuss with his wife; or any other woman. But he
+kissed her with an unusual sense of compunction. “Perhaps I liked the
+idea of surprising you,” he said untruthfully. “You will be glad to
+live in Butte once more?”
+“You may bet your bottom dollar on that. When do we go?”
+“Tomorrow.”
+“_Lands_ sakes! Well, I’m dumb. And breakfast has to be got if I _have_
+had a bomb exploded under me. That Chink was doin’ fine when I left,
+but the Lord knows----”
+She walked toward the rear of the house, temper in the swing of her
+hips, her head tossed high. Although rejoicing at the prospect of
+living in town, she was both angry and vaguely alarmed, as she so often
+had been before, at the unimaginable reserves, the unsuspected mental
+activities, and the sudden strikings of this life-partner who should
+have done his thinking out loud.
+“Lord knows,” thought Mrs. Compton, as she approached her kitchen, with
+secret intent to relieve her feelings by “lambasting” the Mongolian and
+leaving Oakley to shift for himself, “it’s like livin’ with that there
+Sphinx. I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get used to him, and maybe the time’ll
+come when I won’t want to.”
+III
+Gregory stood for some time longer, leaning on the gate and waiting
+for the red fire to rise above the crystal mountains. He was eager for
+the morrow, not only because he longed to be at the foundation stones
+of his real life but because his mind craved the precise training, the
+logical development, the intoxicating sense of expansion which he had
+missed and craved incessantly during the six years that had elapsed
+since he had been torn from the School of Mines. Moreover, his heart
+was light; at last he was able to shift the great responsibilities of
+his ranch to other shoulders.
+Some six months since, his friend, Mark Blake, had recommended to him
+a young man who not only had graduated at the head of his class in
+the State College of Agriculture, but had served for two years on one
+of the State Experimental Farms. “What he don’t know about scientific
+farming, dry, intensive, and all the rest, isn’t worth shucks, old
+man,” Blake had written. “He’s as honest as they come, and hasn’t a red
+to do the trick himself, but wants to go on a ranch as foreman, and
+farm wherever there’s soil of a reasonable depth. Of course he wants a
+share of the profits, but he’s worth it to you, for the Lord never cut
+you out for a rancher or farmer, well as you have done. What you want
+is to finish your course and take your degree. Try Oakley out for six
+months. There’ll be only one result. You’re a free man.”
+The contract had been signed the day before. But Oakley had been a
+welcome guest in the small household for more than practical reasons.
+Until the night of his advent, when the two men sat talking until
+daylight, Gregory had not realised the mental isolation of his married
+life. Like all young men he had idealised the girl who made the first
+assault on his preferential passion; but his brain was too shrewd,
+keen, practical, in spite of its imaginative area, to harbor illusions
+beyond the brief period of novelty. It had taken him but a few weeks
+to discover that although his wife had every charm of youth and sex,
+and was by no means a fool, their minds moved on different planes, far
+apart. He had dreamed of the complete understanding, the instinctive
+response, the identity of tastes, in short of companionship, of the
+final routing of a sense of hopeless isolation he had never lost
+consciousness of save when immersed in study.
+Ida subscribed for several of the “cheapest” of the cheap magazines,
+and, when her Mongolians were indulgent, rocked herself in the
+sitting-room, devouring the factory sweets and crude mental drugs with
+much the same spirit that revelled above bargain counters no matter
+what the wares. She “lived” for the serials, and attempted to discuss
+the “characters” with her husband and John Oakley. But the foreman was
+politely intolerant of cheap fiction, Gregory open in his disgust.
+He admitted unequivocally that he had made a mistake, but assuming
+that most men did, philosophically concluded to make the best of it;
+women, after all, played but a small part in a man’s life. He purposed,
+however, that she should improve her mind, and would have been glad
+to move to Butte for no other reason. He had had a sudden vision one
+night, when his own mind, wearied with study, drifted on the verge
+of sleep, of a lifetime on a lonely ranch with a woman whose brain
+deteriorated from year to year, her face faded and vacuous, save when
+animated with temper. If the De Smet Ranch proved to be mineralised,
+Oakley, his deliverer, would not be forgotten.
+He moved his head restlessly, his glance darting over as much of his
+fine estate as it could focus, wondering when it would give up its
+secrets, in other words, its gold. He had never doubted that it winked
+and gleamed, and waited for him below the baffling surfaces of his
+land. Not for millions down would he have sold his ranch, renounced the
+personal fulfilment of that old passionate romance.
+Gregory Compton was a dreamer, not in the drifting and aimless
+fashion of the visionary, but as all men born with creative powers,
+practical or artistic, must be. Indeed, it is doubtful if the artistic
+brain--save possibly where the abnormal tracts are musical in the
+highest sense--ever need, much less develop, that leaping vision, that
+power of visualising abstract ideas, of the men whose gifts for bold
+and original enterprise enable them to drive the elusive wealth of the
+world first into a corner, then into their own pockets.
+When one contemplates the small army of men of great wealth in the
+world today, and, just behind, that auxiliary regiment endowed with the
+talent, the imagination, and the grim assurance necessary to magnetise
+the circulating riches of our planet; contemptuous of those hostile
+millions, whose brains so often are of unleavened dough, always devoid
+of talent, envious, hating, but sustained by the conceit which nature
+stores in the largest of her reservoirs to pour into the vacancies of
+the minds of men; seldom hopeless, fooling themselves with dreams of
+a day when mere brute numbers shall prevail, and (human nature having
+been revolutionised by a miracle) all men shall be equal and content to
+remain equal;--when one stands off and contemplates these two camps,
+the numerically weak composed of the forces of mind, the other of the
+unelectrified yet formidable millions, it is impossible to deny not
+only the high courage and supernormal gifts of the little army of
+pirates, but that, barring the rapidly decreasing numbers of explorers
+in the waste places of the earth, in them alone is the last stronghold
+of the old adventurous spirit that has given the world its romance.
+The discontented, the inefficient, the moderately successful, the
+failures, see only remorseless greed in the great money makers. Their
+temper is too personal to permit them to recognise that here are the
+legitimate inheritors of the dashing heroes they enjoy in history,
+the bold and ruthless egos that throughout the ages have transformed
+savagery into civilisation, torpor into progress, in their pursuit
+of gold. That these “doing” buccaneers of our time are the current
+heroes of the masses, envious or generous in tribute, the most welcome
+“copy” of the daily or monthly press, is proof enough that the spirit
+of adventure still flourishes in the universal heart, seldom as modern
+conditions permit its expansion. For aught we know it may be this
+old spirit of adventure that inspires the midnight burglar and the
+gentlemen of the road, not merely the desire for “easy money.” But
+these are the flotsam. The boldest imaginations and the most romantic
+hearts are sequestered in the American “big business” men of today.
+Gregory Compton had grown to maturity in the most romantic subdivision
+of the United States since California retired to the position of a
+classic. Montana, her long winter surface a reflection of the beautiful
+dead face of the moon, bore within her arid body illimitable treasure,
+yielding it from time to time to the more ardent and adventurous of her
+lovers. Gold and silver, iron, copper, lead, tungsten, precious and
+semi-precious stones--she might have been some vast heathen idol buried
+aeons ago when Babylon was but a thought in the Creator’s brain, and
+the minor gods travelled the heaving spaces to immure their treasure,
+stolen from rival stars.
+Gregory had always individualised as well as idealised his state,
+finding more companionship in her cold mysteries than in the unfruitful
+minds of his little world. His youthful dreams, when sawing wood or
+riding after cattle, had been alternately of desperate encounters with
+Indians and of descending abruptly into vast and glittering corridors.
+The creek on the ranch had given up small quantities of placer gold,
+enough to encourage “Old Compton,” least imaginative of men, to use his
+pick up the side of the gulch, and even to sink a shaft or two. But he
+had wasted his money, and he had little faith in the mineral value of
+the De Smet Ranch or in his own luck. He was a thrifty, pessimistic,
+hard-working, down-east Presbyterian, whose faith in predestination had
+killed such roots of belief in luck as he may have inherited with other
+attributes of man. He sternly discouraged his son’s hopes, which the
+silent intense boy expressed one day in a sudden mood of fervour and
+desire for sympathy, bidding him hang on to the live stock, which were
+a certain sure source of income, and go out and feed hogs when he felt
+onsettled like.
+He died when Gregory was in the midst of his Junior year in the School
+of Mines, and the eager student was obliged to renounce his hope of a
+congenial career, for the present, and assume control of the ranch.
+It was heavily mortgaged; his father’s foreman, who had worked on the
+ranch since he was a lad, had taken advantage of the old man’s failing
+mind to raise the money, as well as to obtain his signature to the sale
+of more than half the cattle. He had disappeared with the concrete
+result a few days before Mr. Compton’s death.
+It was in no serene spirit that Gregory entered upon the struggle
+for survival at the age of twenty-one. Bitterly resenting his abrupt
+divorce from the School of Mines, which he knew to be the gateway to
+his future, and his faith in mankind dislocated by the cruel defection
+of one whom he had liked and trusted from childhood, he seethed under
+his stolid exterior while working for sixteen hours a day to rid the
+ranch of its encumbrance and replace the precious cattle. But as
+the greater part of this time was spent out of doors he outgrew the
+delicacy of his youth and earlier manhood, and, with red blood and
+bounding pulses, his bitterness left him.
+He began to visit Butte whenever he could spare a few days from the
+ranch, to “look up” as his one chum, Mark Blake, expressed it; so
+that by the time he married he knew the life of a Western mining
+town--an education in itself--almost as well as he knew the white and
+silent spaces of Montana. With the passing of brooding and revolt his
+old dreams revived, and he spent, until he married, many long days
+prospecting. He had found nothing until a few weeks ago, early in
+October, and then the discovery, such as it was, had been accidental.
+There had been a terrific wind storm, beginning shortly after sundown,
+reaching at midnight a velocity of seventy-two miles an hour, and
+lasting until morning; it had been impossible to sleep or to go out of
+doors and see to the well-being of the cattle.
+The wind was not the Chinook, although it came out of the west, for
+it was bitterly cold. Two of the house windows facing the storm were
+blown in and the roof of a recent addition went off. As such storms are
+uncommon in Montana, even Gregory was uneasy, fearing the house might
+go, although it had been his father’s boast that not even an earthquake
+could uproot it. After daybreak the steady fury of the storm ceased.
+There was much damage done to the outbuildings, but, leaving Oakley to
+superintend repairs, Gregory mounted his horse and rode over the ranch
+to examine the fences and brush sheds. The former were intact, and the
+cattle were huddled in their shelters, which were built against the
+side of a steep hill. A few, no doubt, had drifted before the storm,
+but would return in the course of the day. Here and there a pine tree
+had been blown over, but the winter wheat and alfalfa were too young to
+be injured.
+He rode towards the hill where the wind had done its most conspicuous
+damage. It was a long steep hill of granite near the base and grey
+limestone above topped with red shales, and stood near the northeast
+corner of the ranch. Its rigid sides had been relieved by a small grove
+of pines; but although in spring it was gay with anemones and primrose
+moss, and green until late in July, there was nothing on its ugly
+flanks at this time of the year but sunburnt grass.
+The old pines had clung tenaciously to the inhospitable soil for
+centuries, but some time during the night, still clutching a mass of
+earth and rock in their great roots, they had gone down before the
+storm.
+Gregory felt a pang of distress; in his boyhood that grove of pines
+had been his retreat; there he had dreamed his dreams, visualised the
+ascending metals, forced upward from the earth’s magma by one of those
+old titanic convulsions that make a joke of the modern earthquake, to
+find a refuge in the long fissures of the cooler crust, or in the great
+shattered zones. He knew something of geology and chemistry when he was
+twelve, and he “saw” the great primary deposits change their character
+as they were forced closer to the surface, acted upon by the acids of
+air and water in the oxide zone.
+There he had lived down his disappointments, taken his dumb trouble
+when his mother died; and he had found his way blindly to the dark
+little grove after his father’s funeral and he had learned the wrong
+that had been done him.
+He had not gone there since. He had been busy always, and lost the
+habit. But now he remembered, and with some wonder, for it was the one
+ugly spot on the ranch, save in its brief springtime, that once it had
+drawn his feet like a magnet. Hardly conscious of the act, he rode to
+the foot of the hill, dismounted and climbed towards the grove which
+had stood about fifty feet from the crest.
+The ruin was complete. The grove, which once may have witnessed ancient
+rites, was lying with its points in the brown grass. Its gaunt roots,
+packed close with red earth and pieces of rock, seemed to strain upward
+in agonised protest. Men deserted on the battlefield at night look
+hardly more stricken than a tree just fallen.
+As Gregory approached his old friends his eyes grew narrower and
+narrower; his mind concentrated to a point as sharp and penetrating
+as a needle. If the storm, now fitful, had suddenly returned to its
+highest velocity he would not have known it. He walked rapidly behind
+the vanquished roots and picked out several bits of rock that were
+embedded in the earth. Then he knelt down and examined other pieces
+of rock in the excavation where the trees had stood. Some were of a
+brownish-yellow colour, others a shaded green of rich and mellow tints.
+There was no doubt whatever that they were float.
+He sat down suddenly and leaned against the roots of the trees. Had
+he found his “mine”? Float indicates an ore body somewhere, and as
+these particles had been prevented from escaping by the roots of trees
+incalculably old, it was reasonable to assume that the ores were
+beneath his feet.
+His brain resumed its normal processes, and he deliberately gave his
+imagination the liberty of its youth. The copper did not interest him,
+but he stared at the piece of quartz in his hand as if it had been
+a seer’s crystal. He saw great chambers of quartz flecked with free
+gold, connected by pipes or shoots equally rich. Once he frowned, the
+ruthlessly practical side of his intelligence reminding him that his
+labours and hopes might be rewarded by a shallow pocket. But he brushed
+the wagging finger aside. He could have sworn that he felt the pull of
+the metals within the hill.
+He was tired and hungry, but his immediate impulse, as soon as he had
+concluded that he had dreamed long enough, was to go for his tools and
+run a cut. He sprang to his feet; but he had taken only a few steps
+when he turned and stared at the gashed earth, his head a little on
+one side in an attitude that always indicated he was thinking hard and
+with intense concentration. Then he set his lips grimly, walked down
+the steep hillside, mounted his horse, and rode home. In the course of
+the afternoon he returned to the hill, picked all the pieces of float
+from the soil between the tree-roots, and buried them, stamping down
+the earth. A few days later there was a light fall of snow. He returned
+once more to the hill, this time with two of his labourers, who cut up
+the trees and hauled them away. For the present his possible treasure
+vault was restored to the seclusion of its centuries.
+He had made up his mind that the ores should stay where they were
+until he had finished his education in the School of Mines. He had
+planned to finish that course, and what he planned he was in the habit
+of executing. This was not the time for dreams, nor for prospecting,
+but to learn all that the School could teach him. Then, if there
+were valuable ore bodies in his hill he could be his own manager and
+engineer. He knew that he had something like genius for geology, also
+that many veins were lost through an imperfect knowledge (or sense)
+of that science in mining engineers; on the other hand, that the
+prospector, in spite of his much vaunted sixth sense, often failed,
+where the hidden ores were concerned, through lack of scientific
+training. He determined to train his own faculties as far as possible
+before beginning development work on his hill. Let the prospector’s
+fever get possession of him now and that would be the end of study. The
+hill would keep. It was his. The ranch was patented.
+When he had finished the interment of the float he had taken a small
+notebook from his pocket and inscribed a date: June the third, eighteen
+months later. Not until that date would he even ride past his hill.
+Born with a strong will and a character endowed with force,
+determination and a grimly passive endurance, it was his pleasure to
+test and develop both. The process was satisfactory to himself but
+sometimes trying to his friends.
+Until this morning he had not permitted his mind to revert to the
+subject. But although the hill--Limestone Hill it was called in the
+commonplace nomenclature of the country--was far away and out of the
+range of his vision, he could conjure it up in its minutest external
+detail, and he permitted himself this luxury for a few moments after
+his wife had left him to a welcome solitude. On this hill were centred
+all his silent hopes.
+If he had been greedy for riches alone he would have promoted a company
+at once, if a cut opened up a chamber that assayed well, and reaped the
+harvest with little or no trouble to himself. But nothing was farther
+from his mind. He wanted the supreme adventure. He wanted to find the
+ores with his own pick. After the adventure, then the practical use of
+wealth. There was much he could do for his state. He knew also that in
+one group of brain-cells, as yet unexplored, was the ambition to enter
+the lists of “doing” men, and pit his wits against the best of them.
+But he was young, he would have his adventure, live his dream first.
+Not yet, however.
+The swift passing of his marital illusions had convinced him that the
+real passion of his life was for Montana and the golden blood in her
+veins. Placer mining never had interested him. He wanted to find his
+treasure deep in the jealous earth. He assured himself as he stood
+there in the blue dawn that it was well to be rid of love so early in
+the game, free to devote himself, with no let from wandering mind and
+mere human pulses, to preparation for the greatest of all romances,
+the romance of mining. That he might ever crave the companionship of
+one woman was as remote from his mind as the possibility of failure.
+To learn all that man and experience could teach him of the science
+that has been so great a factor in the world’s progress; to magnetise
+a vast share of Earth’s riches, first for the hot work of the battle,
+then for the power it would give him; to conquer life; these were a
+few of the flitting dreams that possessed him as he watched the red
+flame lick the white crests of the mountains, and the blue clouds turn
+to crimson; his long sensitive lips folded closely, his narrow eyes
+penetrating the mists of the future, neither seeing nor considering
+its obstacles, its barriers, its disenchantments. Thrice happy are the
+dreamers of the world, when their imaginations are creative, not a mere
+maggot wandering through the brain hatching formless eggs of desire
+and discontent. They are the true inheritors of the centuries, whether
+they succeed or fail in the eyes of men; for they live in vivid silent
+intense drama as even they have no power to live and enjoy in mortal
+conditions.
+IV
+The Comptons were quickly settled in the little cottage in East Granite
+Street, for as Mrs. Hook’s furniture was solid Ida had not sold it.
+There was little to do, therefore, but repaper the walls, build a
+bathroom, furnish a dining-room, send the parlour furniture to the
+upholsterers--Ida had had enough of horsehair--and chattel the kitchen.
+Ida had several virtues in which she took a vocal pride, and not the
+least of these was housekeeping in all its variety. The luxurious
+side of her nature might revel in front parlours, trashy magazines,
+rocking-chairs and chewing-gum, but she never indulged in these orgies
+unless her house were in order. After her arrival in Butte it was quite
+a month before she gave a thought to leisure. They spent most of this
+time at a hotel, but Ida was out before the stores opened, and divided
+her day between the workmen at the cottage, the upholsterer, and the
+bargain counter. She was “on the job” every minute until the cottage
+was “on wheels.” Her taste was neither original nor artistic, but she
+had a rude sense of effect, and a passion for what she called colour
+schemes. She boasted to Gregory at night, when she had him at her mercy
+at the hotel dinner-table, that although everything had to be cheap
+except the kitchen furnishings, colours did not cost any more than
+black or drab. When the cottage was in order, and they moved in, he saw
+its transfigured interior for the first time. The bedroom was done in
+a pink that set his teeth on edge, and the little parlour was papered,
+upholstered, carpeted, cushioned in every known shade of red.
+“All you want is a chromo or two of Indian battlegrounds--just after,”
+he remarked.
+Ida interrupted tartly:
+“Well, I should think you’d be grateful for the contrast to them
+everlasting white or brown mountains. We don’t get away from them even
+in town, now the smoke’s gone.”
+“One would think Montana had no springtime.”
+“Precious little. That’s the reason I’ve got a green dining-room.”
+Gregory, who had suffered himself to be pushed into an arm-chair,
+looked at his wife speculatively, as she rocked herself luxuriously,
+her eyes dwelling fondly on the magenta paper, the crimson curtains,
+the turkey red and crushed strawberry cushions of the divan, the
+blood-red carpet with its still more sanguinary pattern. What
+blind struggle was going on in that uninstructed brain against the
+commonplace, what seed of originality, perhaps, striving to shoot forth
+a green tip from the hard crust of ignorance and conceit?
+He had made up his mind to suggest the tillage of that brain without
+delay, but, knowing her sensitive vanity, cast about for a tactful
+opening.
+“Do you really intend to do your own work?” he asked. “I am more than
+willing to pay for a servant.”
+“Not much. I’m goin’ to begin to save up for the future right now. I’ll
+put out the wash, but it’s a pity if a great husky girl like me can’t
+cook for two and keep this little shack clean. You ain’t never goin’ to
+be able to say I didn’t help you all I could.”
+Gregory glowed with gratitude as he looked at the beautiful face of has
+wife, flushed with the ardour of the true mate.
+“You are all right,” he murmured.
+“The less we spend the quicker we’ll get rich,” pursued Mrs. Compton.
+“I don’t mind this triflin’ work, but it would have made me sick to
+stay much longer on that ranch workin’ away my youth and looks and
+nothin’ to show for it. Now that you’ve really begun on somethin’
+high-toned and that’s bound to be a go, I just like the idea of havin’
+a hand in the job.”
+“Ah!-- Well-- If you have this faith in my power to make a fortune--if
+you are looking forward to being a rich man’s wife, to put it
+crudely--don’t you think you should begin to prepare yourself for the
+position----”
+“Now what are you drivin’ at?” She sprang to her feet. Her eyes blazed.
+Her hands went to her hips. “D’you mean to say I ain’t good enough?
+I suppose you’d be throwin’ me over for a grand dame when you get
+up in the world like some other millionaires we know of, let alone
+politicians what get to thinkin’ themselves statesmen, and whose
+worn-out old wives ain’t good enough for ’em. Well, take this from
+me and take it straight--I don’t propose to wear out, and I don’t
+propose----”
+“Sit down. I shall be a rich man long before you lose your beauty. Nor
+have I any social ambitions. The world of men is all that interests me.
+But with you it will be different----”
+“You may betcherlife it’ll be different--some! When I have a
+cream-coloured pressed brick house with white trimmings over there in
+Millionaire Gulch nobody’ll be too good for me.”
+“You shall live your life to suit yourself, in the biggest house in
+Butte, if that is what you want. But there is more in it than that.”
+“Clothes, of course. _Gowns!_ And jewels, and New York--Lord! wouldn’t
+I like to swell up and down Peacock Ally! And Southern California, and
+Europe, and givin’ balls, and bein’ a member of the Country Club.”
+“All that, as a matter of course! But you would not be content with the
+mere externals. Whether you know it or not, Ida, you are an ambitious
+woman.” This was a mere gambler’s throw on Gregory’s part. He knew
+nothing of her ambitions, and would have called them by another name if
+he had.
+“Not know it? Well, you may just betcherlife I know it!”
+“But hardly where ambition leads. No sooner would you be settled in a
+fine house, accustomed to your new toys, than you would want society.
+I don’t mean that you would have any difficulty gaining admittance to
+Butte society, for it is said that none in the world is more hospitable
+and less particular. But whether you make _friends_ of the best people
+here, much less become a leader, depends--well, upon several things----”
+“Fire away,” said Ida sulkily. “You must be considerable in earnest to
+talk a blue streak!”
+“Business may take me to New York from time to time, but my home shall
+remain here. I never intend to abandon my state and make a fool of
+myself on New York’s doorstep as so many Montanans have done. Nail
+up that fact and never forget it. Now, you would like to win an
+unassailable position in your community, would you not?”
+“Yep.”
+Gregory abandoned tact. “Then begin at once to prepare yourself. You
+must have a teacher and study--English, above all things.”
+“My Goo-r-rd!” She flushed almost purple. For the moment she hated him.
+“I’ve always suspicioned you thought I wasn’t good enough for you, with
+your graduatin’ from the High School almost while you was in short
+pants, and them two years and over at that high-brow School of Mines;
+and now you’re tellin’ me you’ll be ashamed of me the minute you’re on
+top!”
+Gregory made another attempt at diplomacy. What his wife achieved
+socially was a matter of profound indifference to him, but she must
+reform her speech if his home life was to be endurable.
+“I am forcing my imagination to keep pace with your future triumphs,”
+he said with the charming smile that disarmed even Ida when irate. “If
+you are going to be a prominent figure in society----”
+“My land, you oughter heard the grammar and slang of some of the newest
+West Siders when they were makin’ up their minds at Madame O’Reilley’s,
+or havin’ their measures took. They don’t frighten me one little bit.”
+“There is a point. To lead them you must be their superior--and the
+equal of those that have made the most of their advantages.”
+“That’s not such a bad idea.”
+“Think it over.” He rose, for he was tired of the conversation. “These
+western civilisations are said to be crude, but I fancy they are the
+world in little. Subtlety, a brain developed beyond the common, should
+go far----”
+“Greg, you are dead right!” She had suddenly remembered that she must
+play up to this man who held her ambitions in his hand, and she had the
+wit to acknowledge his prospicience, little as were the higher walks of
+learning to her taste. She sprang to her feet with a supple undulating
+movement and flung herself into his arms.
+“I’ll begin the minute you find me a teacher,” she exclaimed. Then she
+kissed him. “I’m goin’ to keep right along with you and make you proud
+of me,” she murmured. “I’m crazy about you and always will be. Swear
+right here you’ll never throw me over, or run round with a P’rox.”
+Gregory laughed, but held her off for a moment and stared into her
+eyes. After all, might not study and travel and experience give depth
+to those classic eyes which now seemed a mere joke of Nature? Was she
+merely the natural victim of her humble conditions? Her father had
+been a miner of a very superior sort, conservative and contemptuous of
+agitators, but a powerful voice in his union and respected alike by men
+and managers. Mrs. Hook had been a shrewd, hard-working, tight-fisted
+little woman from Concord, who had never owed a penny, nor turned out
+a careless piece of work. Both parents with education or better luck
+might have taken a high position in any western community. He knew also
+the preternatural quickness and adaptability of the American woman. But
+could a common mind achieve distinction?
+Ida, wondering “what the devil he was thinking about,” nestled closer
+and gave him a long kiss, her woman’s wisdom, properly attributed to
+the serpent, keeping her otherwise mute. Gregory snatched her suddenly
+to him and returned her kiss. The new hope revived a passion by no
+means dead for this beautiful young creature, and for the hour he was
+as happy as during his rosy honeymoon.
+V
+When the cottage was quite in order Mrs. Compton invited two of her old
+friends to lunch. As the School of Mines was at the opposite end of the
+city, Gregory took his midday meal with him.
+Miss Ruby Miller and her twin-sister Pearl were fine examples of the
+self-supporting young womanhood of the West. Neither had struggled
+in the extreme economic sense, although when launched they had
+taken a man’s chances and asked no quarter. Born in a small town in
+Illinois, their father, a provident grocer, had permitted each of his
+daughters to attend school until her fifteenth year, then sent her
+to Chicago to learn a trade. Ruby had studied the mysteries of the
+hair, complexion, and hands; Pearl the science that must supplement
+the knack for trimming hats. Both worked faithfully as apprentice and
+clerk, saving the greater part of their earnings: they purposed to
+set up for themselves in some town of the Northwest where money was
+easier, opportunities abundant and expertness rare. What they heard
+of Montana appealed to their enterprising minds, and, beginning with
+cautious modesty, some four years before Ida’s marriage, Ruby was now
+the leading hair-dresser and manicure of Butte, her pleasant address
+and natural diplomacy assisting her competent hands to monopolise the
+West Side custom; Pearl, although less candid and engaging, more frank
+in reminding her customers of their natural deficiencies, was equally
+capable; if not the leading milliner in that town of many milliners,
+where even the miners’ wives bought three hats a season, she was
+rapidly making a reputation among the feathered tribe. She now ranked
+as one of the most successful of the young business women in a region
+where success is ever the prize of the efficient. Both she and her
+sister were as little concerned for their future as the metal hill of
+Butte itself.
+“Well, what do you know about that?” they cried simultaneously, as Ida
+ushered them into the parlour. “Say, it’s grand!” continued Miss Ruby
+with fervour. “Downright artistic. Ide, you’re a wonder!”
+Miss Pearl, attuned to a subtler manipulation of colour, felt too happy
+in this intimate reunion and the prospect of “home-cooking,” to permit
+even her spirit to grin. “Me for red, kiddo,” she said. “It’s the
+colour a hard workin’ man or woman wants at the end of the day--warm,
+and comfortin’, and sensuous-like, and contrastin’ fine with dirty
+streets and them hills. Glory be, but this chair’s comfortable! I
+suppose it’s Greg’s.”
+“Of course. Luckily a woman don’t have the least trouble findin’ out a
+man’s weak points, and Greg has a few, thank the goodness godness. But
+come on to the dining-room. I’ve got fried chicken and creamed potatoes
+and raised biscuit.”
+The guests shrieked with an abandon that proclaimed them the helpless
+victims of the Butte restaurant or the kitchenette. The fried chicken
+in its rich gravy, and the other delicacies, including fruit salad,
+disappeared so rapidly that there was little chance for the play of
+intellect until the two girls fled laughing to the parlour.
+“It’s all very well for Pearl,” cried Miss Ruby, disposing her plump
+figure in Gregory’s arm-chair, and taking the pins from a mass of red
+hair that had brought her many a customer; “for she’s the kind that’ll
+never have to diet if she gets rich quick. I ought to be shassaying
+round with my hands on my hips right now, but I won’t.”
+Miss Pearl extended herself on the divan, and Ida rocked herself with a
+complacent smile. One of her vanities was slaked, and she experienced a
+sense of immense relief in the society of these two old friends of her
+own sort.
+“Say!” exclaimed Miss Miller, “if we was real swell, now, we’d be
+smokin’ cigarettes.”
+“What!” cried Ida, scandalised. “No lady’d do such a thing. Say, I
+forgot the gum.”
+She opened a drawer and flirted an oblong section of chewing-gum at
+each of her guests, voluptuously inserting a morsel in the back of her
+own mouth. “Where on earth have you seen ladies smokin’ cigarettes?”
+“You forget I’m in and out of some of our best families. In other words
+them that’s too swell--or too lazy--to come to me, has me up to them.
+And they’re just as nice--most of ’em--as they can be; no more airs
+than their men, and often ask me to stay to lunch. I ain’t mentionin’
+no names, as I was asked not to, for you know what an old-fashioned
+bunch there is in every Western town--well, they out with their gold
+tips after lunch, and maybe you think they don’t know how. I have my
+doubts as to their enjoyin’ it, for tobacco is nasty tastin’ stuff, and
+I notice they blow the smoke out quicker’n they take it in. No inhalin’
+for them. But they like _doin’_ it; that’s the point. And I guess they
+do it a lot at the Country Club and at some of the dinners where the
+Old Guard ain’t asked. They smoke, and think it’s vulgar to chew gum!
+We know it’s the other way round.”
+“Well, I guess!” exclaimed the young matron, who had listened to this
+chronicle of high life with her mouth open. “What their husbands
+thinkin’ about to permit such a thing! I can see Greg’s face if I lit
+up.”
+“Oh, their husbands don’t care,” said Pearl, the cynic. “Not in that
+bunch. They’re trained, and they don’t care, anyhow. Make the most of
+Greg now, kiddo. When he strikes it rich, he’ll be just like the rest
+of ’em, annexin’ right and left. Matter of principle.”
+“Principle nothing!” exclaimed Ruby, who, highly sophisticated as any
+young woman earning her living in a mining town must be, was always
+amiable in her cynicism. “It’s too much good food and champagne, to say
+nothin’ of cocktails and highballs and swell club life after the lean
+and hungry years. They’re just like kids turned loose in a candy store,
+helpin’ themselves right and left with both hands. Dear old boys,
+they’re so happy and so jolly you can’t help feelin’ real maternal over
+’em, and spoilin’ ’em some more. I often feel like it, even when they
+lay for me--they look so innocent and hungry-like; but others I could
+crack over the ear, and I don’t say I haven’t. Lord, how a girl alone
+does get to know men! I wouldn’t marry one of them if he’d give me the
+next level of the Anaconda mine. Me for the lonesome!”
+“Well, I’m glad I’m married,” said Ida complacently. “The kind of life
+I want you can only get through a husband. Greg’s goin’ to make money,
+all right.”
+“Greg won’t be as bad as some,” said the wise Miss Ruby. “He’s got big
+ideas, and as he don’t say much about ’em, he’s likely thinkin’ about
+nothin’ else. At least that’s the way I figure him out. The Lord knows
+I’ve seen enough of men. But you watch out just the same. Them long
+thin ones that looks like they was all brains and jaw is often the
+worst. They’ve got more nerves. The minute the grind lets up they begin
+to look out for an adventure, wonderin’ what’s round the next corner.
+Wives ain’t much at supplyin’ adventure----”
+“Well, let’s quit worryin’ about what ain’t happened,” said Miss Pearl
+abruptly. Men did not interest her. “Will he take you to any of the
+dances? That’s what I want to know. You’ve been put up and elected
+to our new and exclusive Club. No more Coliseum Saturday Nights for
+us--Race Track is a good name for it. We’ve taken a new little hall
+over Murphy’s store for Saturday nights till the Gardens open up, and
+we have real fun. No rowdyism. We leave that to the cut below. This
+Club is composed of real nice girls and young men of Butte who are
+workin’ hard at something high-toned and respectable, and frown hard on
+the fast lot.”
+“Sounds fine. Perhaps Greg’ll go, though he studies half the night. Do
+you meet at any other time? Is it one of them mind improvers, too?”
+“Nixie. We work all week and want fun when we get a few hours off. I
+improve my mind readin’ myself to sleep every night----”
+“What do you read?” interrupted Ida, eagerly.
+“Oh, the mags, of course, and a novel now and then. But you don’t need
+novels any more. The mags are wonders! They teach you all the life you
+don’t know--all the way from lords to burglars. Then there’s the movin’
+pictures. Lord, but we have advantages our poor mothers never dreamed
+of!”
+“Greg wants me to study with a teacher.” Ida frowned reminiscently and
+fatidically. “He seems to think I didn’t get nothin’ at school.”
+“Well, what do you know about that?” gasped Miss Miller. Pearl removed
+her gum with a dry laugh.
+“If a man insinuated I wasn’t good enough for him--” she began; Ruby,
+whose quick mind was weather-wise, interrupted her.
+“Greg’s right. He’s got education himself and’s proved he don’t mean
+to be a rancher all his life. What’s more, I’ve heard men say that
+Gregory Compton is bound one way or another to be one of the big men of
+Montana. He’s got the brains, he’s got the jaw, and he can outwork any
+miner that ever struck, and no bad habits. Ide, you go ahead and polish
+up.”
+“Why should I? I never could see that those bonanzerines were so much
+better’n us, barring clothes.”
+“You don’t know the best of ’em, Ide. Madame O’Reilley was too gaudy
+to catch any but the newest bunch. The old pioneer guard is fine,
+and their girls have been educated all over this country and the
+next. Lord! Look at Ora Blake! Where’d you beat her? In these new
+Western towns it’s generally the sudden rich that move to New York to
+die of lonesomeness, and nowhere to show their clothes but Peacock
+Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria. The _real_ people keep their homes
+here, if they are awful restless; and I guess the Society they make,
+with their imported gowns and all, ain’t so very different from top
+Society anywheres. Of course, human nature is human nature, and some
+of the younger married women are sporty and take too much when a
+bunch goes over to Boulder Springs for a lark, or get a crush on some
+other woman’s husband--for want mostly of something to do; but their
+grammar’s all right. I hope you’ll teach them a lesson when you’re on
+top, Ide. Good American morals for me, like good American stories.
+I always skip the Europe stories in the mags. Don’t seem modern and
+human, somehow, after Butte.”
+“Now I like Europe stories,” said Ida, “just because they are so
+different. The people in ’em ain’t walkin’ round over gold and copper
+when they’re dishwashin’ or makin’ love, but their mines have been
+turned centuries ago into castles and pictures and grand old parks.
+There’s a kind of halo----”
+“Halo nothin’!” exclaimed Miss Pearl, who was even more aggressively
+American than her sister. “It’s them ridiculous titles. And kings
+and queens and all that antique lot. I despise ’em, and I’m dead
+set against importin’ foreign notions into God’s own country. We’re
+dyed-in-the-wool Americans--out West here, anyhow--including every last
+one of them fools that’s buyin’ new notions with their new money. All
+their Paris clothes _and_ hats, _and_ smokin’ cigarettes, _and_ loose
+talk can’t make ’em anything else. Apin’ Europe and its antiquated
+morals makes me sick to my stomach. Cut it out, kid, before you go any
+further. Stand by your own country and it’ll stand by you.”
+“Well, I’ve got an answer to that. In the first place I’d like to
+know where you’ll find more girls on the loose than right here in
+Butte--and I don’t mean the sporting women, either. Why, I meet bunches
+of schoolgirls every day so painted up they look as if they was fixin’
+right now to be bad; and as for these Eastern workin’ girls who come
+out here after jobs, pretendin’ it’s less pressure and bigger pay
+they’re after, when it’s really to turn loose and give human nature
+a chance with free spenders--well, the way they hold down their jobs
+and racket about all night beats me. None of _them’s_ been to Europe,
+I notice, and I’d like to bet that the schoolgirls that don’t make
+monkeys of themselves is the daughters of them that has.”
+“Oh, the schoolgirls is just plain little fools and no doubt has their
+faces held under the spout for ’em when they get home. But as for the
+Eastern girls, you hit it when you said they come out here to give
+human nature a chance. Some girls is born bad, thousands and thousands
+of them; and reformers might just as well try to grow strawberries in a
+copper smelter as to make a girl run straight when she is lyin’ awake
+nights thinkin’ up new ways of bein’ crooked. But the rotten girls in
+this town are not the whole show. And lots of women that would never
+think of goin’ wrong--don’t naturally care for that sort of thing a
+bit--just get their minds so mixed up by too much sudden money, and
+liberty, and too much high livin’ and too much Europe and too much
+nothin’ to do, that they just don’t know where they’re at; and it isn’t
+long either before they get to thinkin’ they’re not the dead swell
+thing unless they do what the nobility of Europe seems to be doin’ all
+the time----”
+“Shucks!” interrupted Ruby, indignantly. “It’s just them stories in the
+shady mags, and the way our women talk for the sake of effect. There’s
+bad in America and good in poor old Europe. I’ll bet my new hat on
+it. Only, over there the good is out of sight under all that sportin’
+high life everybody seems to write about. Over here we’ve got a layer
+of good on top as thick as cream, and every kind of germ swimmin’
+round underneath. Lord knows there are plenty of just females in this
+town, of all towns, but the U. S. is all right because it has such
+high standards. All sorts of new-fangled notions come and go but them
+standards never budge. No other country has anything like ’em. Sooner
+or later we’ll catch up. I’m great on settin’ the right example and I’m
+dead set on uplift. That’s one reason we’re so strict about our Club
+membership. Not one of them girls can get in, no matter how good her
+job or how swell a dresser she is. And they feel it, too, you bet. The
+line’s drawn like a barbed-wire fence.”
+“I guess you’re dead right,” admitted Ida. “And my morals ain’t in any
+danger, believe me. I’ve got other fish to fry. I’ve had love’s young
+dream and got over it. I’m just about dead sick of that side of life.
+I’d cut it out and put it down to profit and loss, but you’ve got to
+manage men every way nature’s kindly provided, and that’s all there is
+to it.”
+“My land!” exclaimed Ruby. “If I felt that way about my husband I’d
+leave him too quick.”
+“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. You can make up your mind to any old thing.
+That’s life. And I guess life never holds out both hands full at once.
+Either, one’s got a knife in it or it’s out of sight altogether.”
+Ruby snorted with disgust. “Once more I vow I’ll marry none of them. Me
+for self-respect.”
+“Now as to Europe,” pursued Ida. “You’re just nothin’ till you’ve been,
+both as to what you get, and sayin’ you’ve been there----”
+“Ida,” said Ruby, shaking her wise red head, “don’t you go leaving your
+husband summers, like the rest. Men don’t get much chance to go to
+Europe. They prefer little old New York, anyhow--when they get on there
+alone. I wonder what ten thousand wives that go to Europe every summer
+think their husbands are doin’? I haven’t manicured men for nine years
+without knowin’ they need watchin’ every minute. Why, my lord! they’re
+so tickled to death when summer comes round they can hardly wait to
+kiss their wives good-bye and try to look lonesome on the platform.
+They’d like to be down and kick up their heels right there at the
+station. And I didn’t have to come to Butte to find that out.”
+“Greg’ll never run with that fast lot.”
+“No, but he might meet an affinity; and there’s one of _them_ lyin’ in
+wait for every man.”
+Ida’s brow darkened. “Well, just let her look out for herself, that’s
+all. I’ll hang on to Greg. But it ain’t time to worry yet. Let’s have a
+game of poker.”
+VI
+Gregory, through the offices of his friend, Mark Blake, found a
+teacher for Ida before the end of the week, Mr. William Cullen Whalen,
+Professor of English in the Butte High School.
+Mr. Whalen’s present status was what he was in the habit of designating
+as an ignominious anti-climax, considering his antecedents and
+attainments; but he always dismissed the subject with a vague,
+“Health--health--this altitude--this wonderful air--climate--not for me
+are the terrible extremes of our Atlantic seaboard. Here a man may be
+permitted to live, if not in the deeper sense--well, at least, there
+are always one’s thoughts--and books.”
+He was a delicate little man as a matter of fact, but had East winds
+and summer humidities been negligible he would have jumped at the
+position found for him by a college friend who had gone West and
+prospered in Montana. This friend’s letter had much to say about the
+dry tonic air of winter, the cool light air of summer, the many hours
+he would be able to pass in the open, thus deepening the colour of his
+corpuscles, at present a depressing shade of pink; but even more about
+a salary far in excess of anything lying round loose in the East. Mr.
+Whalen, who, since his graduation from the college in his native town,
+had knocked upon several historic portals of learning in vain, finding
+himself invariably outclassed, had shuddered, but accepted his fate by
+the outgoing mail. Of course he despised the West; and the mere thought
+of a mining camp like Butte, which was probably in a drunken uproar
+all the time, almost nauseated him. However, in such an outpost the
+graduate of an Eastern college who knew how to wear his clothes must
+rank high above his colleagues. It might be years before he could play
+a similar rôle at home. So he packed his wardrobe, which included spats
+and a silk hat, and went.
+Nature compensates even her comparative failures by endowing them with
+a deathless self-conceit. Whalen was a man of small abilities, itching
+ambition, all the education his brains could stand, and almost happy
+in being himself and a Whalen. It was true that Fortune had grafted
+him on a well-nigh sapless branch in a small provincial town, while
+the family trunk flourished, green, pruned, and portly, in Boston, but
+no such trifle could alter the fact that he was a Whalen, and destined
+by a discriminating heredity to add to the small but precious bulk of
+America’s literature. Although he found Butte a city of some sixty
+thousand inhabitants, and far better behaved than he had believed could
+be possible in a community employing some fifteen thousand miners, he
+was still able to reassure himself that she outraged every sensibility.
+He assured himself further that its lurid contrasts to the higher
+civilisation would play like a search-light upon the theme for a novel
+he long had had in mind: the subtle actions and reactions of the Boston
+temperament.
+But that was three years ago, and meanwhile several things had happened
+to him. He had ceased to wear his spats and silk hat in public after
+their first appearance on Broadway; the newsboys, who were on strike,
+had seen to that. He wrote his novel, and the _Atlantic Monthly_,
+honored by the first place on his list, declined to give space to his
+innocent plagiarisms of certain anæmic if literary authors now passing
+into history. An agent sent the manuscript the rounds without avail,
+but one of the younger editors had suggested that he try his hand at
+Montana. He was more shocked and mortified at this proposition than
+at the failure of his novel. Time, however, as well as the high cost
+of living in Butte, lent him a grudging philosophy, and he digested
+the advice. But his were not the eyes that see. The printed page was
+his world, his immediate environment but a caricature of the subtle
+realities. Nevertheless, he had what so often appears in the most
+unlikely brains, the story-telling kink. Given an incident he could
+work it up with an abundance of detail and “psychology,” easily
+blue-pencilled, and a certain illusion. Condescend to translate his
+present surroundings into the sacred realm of American fiction he would
+not, but he picked the brains of old-timers for thrilling incidents of
+the days when gold was found at the roots of grass, and the pioneers
+either were terrorized by the lawless element or executed upon it a
+summary and awful justice. Some of his tales were so blood-curdling,
+so steeped in gore and horror, that he felt almost alive when writing
+them. It was true that their market was the Sunday Supplement and the
+more sensational magazines, whose paper and type made his soul turn
+green; but the pay was excellent, and they had begun to attract some
+attention, owing to the contrast between the fierceness of theme and
+the neat precise English in which it was served. Butte valued him as a
+counter-irritant to Mary McLane, and he became a professional diner-out.
+“Do you think he’ll condescend to tutor?” Gregory had asked of Blake.
+Whalen was by no means unknown to him, but heretofore had been regarded
+as a mere worm.
+“Sure thing. Nobody keener on the dollar than Whalen. He’ll stick you,
+but he knows his business. He’s got all the words there are, puts ’em
+in the right place, and tones ’em up so you’d hardly know them.”
+VII
+Ida was out when her prospective tutor called, and she was deeply
+impressed by the card she found under the door: “Mr. William Cullen
+Whalen,” it was inscribed.
+It was the custom of the gentlemen of her acquaintance to express
+their sense of good fellowship even upon the formal pasteboard. “Mr.
+Matt Dance,” “Mr. Phil Mott,” “Mr. Bill Jarvis,” the legends read. Ida
+felt as if she were reciting a line from the Eastern creed as her lips
+formed again and again the suave and labial syllables on her visitor’s
+card. She promptly determined to order cards for her husband on the
+morrow--he was so remiss as to have none--and they should be engraved,
+in small Roman letters: “Mr. Gregory Verrooy Compton.”
+“And believe me,” she announced to her green dining-room, as she sat
+down before her husband’s desk, “that is some name.”
+Her note to Professor Whalen, asking him to call on the following
+afternoon at two o’clock, was commendably brief, so impatient was she
+to arrive at the signature, “Mrs. Gregory Verrooy Compton;” little
+conceiving the effect it would have upon Mr. Whalen’s fastidious spine.
+He called at the hour named, and Ida invited him into the dining-room.
+It was here that Gregory read far into the night, and she vaguely
+associated a large table with much erudition. Moreover, she prided
+herself upon her economy in fuel.
+Mr. Whalen sat in one of the hard, upright chairs, his stick across
+his knee, his gloves laid smartly in the rolling brim of his hat,
+studying this new specimen and wondering if she could be made to do him
+credit. He was surprised to find her so beautiful, and not unrefined in
+style--if only she possessed the acumen to keep her ripe mouth shut.
+In fact he found her quite the prettiest woman he had seen in Butte,
+famous for pretty women; and--and--he searched conscientiously for the
+right word, and blushed as he found it--the most seductive. Ida was
+vain of the fact that she wore no corset, and that not the least of her
+attractions was a waist as flexible as an acrobat’s. What flesh she had
+was very firm, her carriage was easy and graceful, the muscles of her
+back were strong, her lines long and flowing; she walked and moved at
+all times with an undulating movement usually associated with a warmer
+temperament. But nature often amuses herself bestowing the semblance
+and withholding the essence; Ida, calculating and contemptuous of the
+facile passions of men, amused herself with them, confident of her own
+immunity.
+It was now some time since she had enjoyed the admiration of any man
+but her husband, and his grew more and more sporadic, was long since
+dry of novelty. Like most Western husbands, he would not have permitted
+her to make a friend of any other man, nor even to receive the casual
+admirer when he was not at home. Ida was full of vanity, although she
+would have expressed her sudden determination to captivate “little
+Whalen” merely as a desire to keep her hand in. He was the only man
+upon whom she was likely to practise at present (for Gregory would have
+none of the Club dances), and vanity can thirst like a galled palate.
+She had “sized him up” as a “squirt” (poor Ida! little she recked how
+soon she was to be stripped of her picturesque vocabulary), but he was
+“a long sight better than nothing.”
+After they had exhausted the nipping weather, and the possibility of a
+Chinook arriving before night--there was a humming roar high overheard
+at the moment--she lowered her black eyelashes, lifted herself against
+the stiff back of her chair with the motion of a snake uncoiling,
+raised her thick white lids suddenly, and murmured:
+“Well, so you’re goin’ to polish me off? Tell me all my faults! Fire
+away. I know you’ll make a grand success of it. Lord knows (her voice
+became as sweet as honey), you’re different enough from the other men
+in this jay town.”
+Mr. Whalen felt as if he were being drenched with honey dew, for he
+was the type of man whom women take no trouble to educate. But as that
+sweet unmodulated voice stole about his ear porches he drew himself up
+stiffly, conscious of a thrill of fear. To become enamoured of the
+wife of one of these forthright Westerners, who took the law into
+their own hands, was no part of his gentle programme; but he stared
+at her fascinated, never having felt anything resembling a thrill
+before. Moreover, like all people of weak passions, more particularly
+that type of American that hasn’t any, he took pride in his powers
+of self-control. In a moment he threw off the baleful influence and
+replied drily.
+“I think the lessons would better be oral for a time. Do--do I
+understand that I am to correct your individual method of expression?”
+“That’s it, I guess.”
+“And you won’t be offended?” Mr. Whalen’s upper teeth were hemispheric,
+but he had cultivated a paternal and not unpleasing smile. Even the
+pale blue orbs, fixed defiantly upon the siren, warmed a trifle.
+“Well. I don’t s’pose I’ll like bein’ corrected better’n the next,
+but that’s what I’m payin’ for. Now that my husband’s studyin’ for a
+profession, I guess I’ll be in the top set before so very long. There’s
+Mrs. Blake, for instance--her husband told Mr. Compton she’d call this
+week. Is she all that she’s cracked up to be?”
+“Mrs. Blake has had great advantages. She might almost be one of
+our own products, were it not for the fact that she--well--seems
+deliberately to wish to be Western.” He found himself growing more and
+more confused under the steady regard of those limpid shadowy eyes--set
+like the eyes of a goddess in marble, and so disconcertingly shallow.
+He pulled himself up sharply. “Now, if I may begin--you must not sign
+your notes, ‘Mrs. Gregory Verrooy Compton’----”
+Ida’s eyes flashed wide open. “Why not, I’d like to know? Isn’t it as
+good a name as yours?”
+“What has that to do with it? Ah--yes--you don’t quite understand. It
+is not the custom--in what we call society--to sign in that manner--it
+is a regrettable American provincialism. If you really wish to
+learn----”
+“Fire away,” said Ida sullenly.
+“Sign your own name--may I ask what it is?”
+“My name was Ida Maria Hook before I married.”
+“Ida is a beautiful and classic name. We will eliminate the rest. Sign
+yourself Ida Compton--or if you wish to be more swagger, Ida Verrooy
+Compton----”
+“Land’s sake! We’d be laughed clean out of Montana.”
+“Yes, there is a fine primitive simplicity about many things in this
+region,” replied Mr. Whalen, thinking of his spats and silk hat. “But
+you get my point?”
+“I get you.”
+“Oh!--We’ll have a little talk later about slang. And you mustn’t begin
+your letters, particularly to an acquaintance, ‘Dear friend.’ This is
+an idealistic and--ah--bucolic custom, but hardly good form.”
+He was deeply annoyed at his lack of fluency, but Ida once more was
+deliberately “upsetting” him. She smiled indulgently.
+“I guess I like your new-fangled notions. I’ll write all that down
+while you’re thinkin’ up what to say next.”
+She leaned over the table and wrote slowly that he might have leisure
+to admire her figure in profile. But he gazed sternly out of the window
+until she swayed back to the perpendicular and demanded,
+“What next? Do you want me to say băth and căn’t?”
+“Oh, no, I really shouldn’t advise it, not in Butte. I don’t wish to
+teach you anything that will add to the discomforts of life--so long as
+your lines are cast here. Just modify the lamentably short American _a_
+a bit.” And he rehearsed her for a few moments.
+“Fine. I’ll try it on Greg--Mr. Compton. If he laughs I’ll know I’m too
+good, but if he only puckers his eyebrows and looks as if somethin’
+queer was floatin’ round just out of sight, then I’ll know I’ve struck
+the happy medium. I’ll be a real high-brow in less than no time.”
+“You certainly are surprisingly quick,” said Professor Whalen
+handsomely. “In a year I could equip you for our centres of culture,
+but as I remarked just now it would not be kind to transform you into
+an exotic. Now, suppose we read a few pages of this grammar----”
+“I studied grammar at school,” interrupted Ida haughtily. “What do
+you take Butte for, anyhow. It may be a mining camp, and jay enough
+compared with your old Boston, but I guess we learn something mor’n the
+alphabet at all these big red brick schoolhouses we’ve got--Montana’s
+famous for its grand schoolhouses----”
+“Yes, yes, my dear Mrs. Compton. But, you know, one forgets so quickly.
+And then so many of you don’t stay in school long enough. How old were
+you when you left?”
+“Fifteen. Ma wouldn’t let me go to the High.”
+“Precisely. Well, I will adhere to my original purpose, and defer
+books until our next lesson. Perhaps you would like me to tell you
+something more of our Eastern methods of speech--not only words,
+but--er--syntax----”
+“Oh, hang your old East! You make me feel downright patriotic.”
+Professor Whalen was conscious that it was a distinct pleasure to make
+those fine eyes flash. “One would think we were not all Americans,” he
+said with a smile.
+“Well, I guess you look upon America as East and West too. Loads of
+young surveyors and mining men come out here to make their pile, and at
+first Montana ain’t good enough to black their boots, but it soon takes
+the starch out of ’em. No use puttin’ on dog here. It don’t work.”
+“Oh, I assure you it’s merely a difference of manner--of--er tradition.
+We--and I in particular--find your West most interesting--and
+significant. I--ah--regard it as the great furnace under our
+civilization.”
+“And we are the stokers! I like your impudence!”
+He had no desire to lose this remunerative pupil, whose crude mind
+worked more quickly than his own. She was now really angry and he made
+a mild dive in search of his admitted tact.
+“My dear lady, you put words into my mouth that emanate from your own
+clever brain, not from my merely pedantic one. Not only have I the
+highest respect for the West, and for Montana in particular, but please
+remember that the contempt of the East for the West is merely passive,
+negative, when compared with the lurid scorn of the West for the East.
+‘Effete’ is its mildest term of opprobrium. I doubt if your ‘virile’
+Westerner believes us to be really alive, in a condition to inhabit
+aught but a museum. Your men when they ‘make their pile’, or take a
+vacation, never dream of going to Boston, seldom, indeed, to Europe.
+They take the fastest train for New York--and by no means with a view
+to exploring that wilderness for its oases of culture----”
+“Well, I guess not!” cried Ida, her easy good nature restored.
+“All-night restaurants, something new in the way of girls--‘chickens’
+and ‘squabs’--musical shows, watchin’ the sun rise--that’s their
+little old New York. They always come home shakin’ themselves like a
+Newfoundland puppy, or purrin’ like a cat full of cream, but talkin’
+about the Great Free West, God’s Own Country, and the Big Western
+Heart. I’ve a friend who does manicurin’, and she knows ’em like old
+shoes.”
+Whalen, who had a slight cultivated sense of humor, laughed. “You are
+indeed most apt and picturesque, dear Mrs. Compton. But--while I think
+of it--you mustn’t drop your final _gs_. That, I am told, is one of the
+fashionable divagations of the British aristocracy. But with us it is
+the hallmark of the uneducated. Now, I really have told you all you can
+remember for one day, and will take my leave. It is to be every other
+day, I understand. On Wednesday, then, at two?”
+VIII
+Ida walked to the gate with him. She was quite a head taller than he,
+but subtly made him feel that the advantage was his, as it enabled
+her to pour the light of her eyes downward. He picked his way up the
+uneven surface of East Granite Street, slippery with a recent fall of
+snow, not only disturbed, but filled with a new conceit; in other words
+thrilling with his first full sense of manhood.
+Ida looked after him, smiling broadly. But the smile fled abruptly,
+her lips trembled, then contracted. Advancing down the street was
+Mrs. Mark Blake. Ida had known her enterprising young husband before
+he changed his name from Mike to Mark, but she knew his lady wife by
+sight only; Mrs. Blake had not patronized Madame O’Reilley. Ruby and
+Pearl pronounced her “all right”, although a trifle “proud to look
+at.” Ida assumed that she was to receive the promised call, and wished
+she could “get out of it.” Not only did she long for her rocker, gum
+and magazine, after the intellectual strain of the past hour, but she
+had no desire to meet Mrs. Blake or any of “that crowd” until she
+could take her place as their equal. She had her full share of what is
+known as class-consciousness, and its peculiar form of snobbery. To be
+patronized by “swells”, even to be asked to their parties, would give
+her none of that subtle joy peculiar to the climbing snob. When the
+inevitable moment came she would burst upon them, dazzle them, bulldoze
+and lead them, but she wanted none of their crumbs.
+But she was “in for it.” She hastily felt the back of her shirtwaist
+to ascertain if it still were properly adjusted, and sauntered towards
+the cottage humming a tune, pretending not to have seen the lady who
+stopped to have a word with Professor Whalen. “Anyhow, she’s not a
+bonanzerine,” thought Ida. “I guess she did considerable scrapin’ at
+one time; and Mark, for all he could make shoe-blackin’ look like
+molasses, ain’t a millionaire yet.”
+She might indeed, further reflected Ida, watching the smartly tailored
+figure out of the corner of her eye, be pitied, for she had been
+“brought up rich, expecting to marry a duke, and then come down kaplunk
+before she’d much more’n a chance to grow up.” Her father, Judge
+Stratton, a graduate of Columbia University, had been one of the most
+brilliant and unscrupulous lawyers of the Northwest. He had drawn
+enormous fees from railroads and corporations, and in the historic
+Clark-Daly duels for supremacy in the State of Montana, and in the
+more picturesque battle between F. Augustus Heinze and “Amalgamated”
+(that lusty offspring of the great Standard Oil Trust), when the number
+of estimable citizens bought and sold demonstrated the faint impress
+of time on original sin, his legal acumen and persuasive tongue, his
+vitriolic pen, ever had been at the disposal of the highest bidder.
+He had been a distinguished resident of Butte but a few years when he
+built himself a spacious if hideous residence on the West Side. But
+this must have been out of pure loyalty to his adopted state, for it
+was seldom occupied, although furnished in the worst style of the late
+seventies and early eighties. Mrs. Stratton and her daughter spent
+the greater part of their time in Europe. As Judge Stratton disliked
+his wife, was intensely ambitious for his only child, and preferred
+the comforts of his smaller home on The Flat, he rarely recalled his
+legitimate family, and made them a lavish allowance. He died abruptly
+of apoplexy, and left nothing but a life insurance of five thousand
+dollars; he had neglected to take out any until his blood vessels were
+too brittle for a higher risk.
+Mrs. Stratton promptly became an invalid, and Ora brought her home to
+Butte, hoping to save something from the wreck. There was nothing to
+save. As she had not known of the life insurance when they received the
+curt cablegram in Paris, she had sold all of her mother’s jewels save a
+string of pearls, and, when what was left of this irrelative sum after
+the luxurious journey over sea and land, was added to the policy, the
+capital of these two still bewildered women represented little more
+than they had been accustomed to spend in six months. When Mark Blake,
+who had studied law in Judge Stratton’s office after graduating from
+the High School, and now seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the
+business, besides being County Attorney at the moment, implored Ora
+to marry him, and manifested an almost equal devotion to her mother,
+whom he had ranked with the queens of history books since boyhood, she
+accepted him as the obvious solution of her problem.
+She was lonely, disappointed, mortified, a bit frightened. She
+had lived the life of the average American princess, and although
+accomplished had specialised in nothing; nor given a thought to the
+future. As she had cared little for the society for which her mother
+lived, and much for books, music, and other arts, and had talked
+eagerly with the few highly specialised men she was fortunate enough
+to meet, she had assumed that she was clever. She also believed that
+when she had assuaged somewhat her appetite for the intellectual and
+artistic banquet the gifted of the ages had provided, she might develop
+a character and personality, possibly a gift of her own. But she was
+only twenty when her indulgent father died, and, still gorging herself,
+was barely interested in her capacities other than receptive, less
+still in the young men that sought her, unterrified by her reputation
+for brains. She fancied that she should marry when she was about
+twenty-eight, and have a salon somewhere; and the fact that love had
+played so little a part in her dreams made it easier to contemplate
+marriage with this old friend of her childhood. His mother had been
+Mrs. Stratton’s seamstress, to be sure, but as he was a good boy,--he
+called for the frail little woman every evening to protect her from
+roughs on her long walk east to the cottage her husband had built
+shortly before he was blown to pieces somewhere inside of Butte--he
+had been permitted to hold the dainty Ora on his knee, or toss her,
+gurgling with delight, into the air until he puffed.
+Mark had been a fat boy, and was now a fat young man with a round
+rosy face and a rolling lazy gait. He possessed an eye of remarkable
+shrewdness, however, was making money rapidly, never lost sight of
+the main chance, and was not in the least surprised when his marriage
+lifted him to the pinnacle of Butte society. In spite of his amiable
+weaknesses, he was honest if sharp, an inalienable friend, and he
+made a good husband according to his lights. Being a man’s man, and
+naturally elated at his election to the exclusive Silver Bow Club soon
+after his marriage to the snow maiden of his youthful dreams, he
+formed the habit of dropping in for a game of billiards every afternoon
+on his way home, and returning for another after dinner. But within
+three years he was able to present the wife of whom he was inordinately
+proud with a comfortable home on the West Side, and he made her an
+allowance of ever increasing proportions.
+Ora, who had her own idea of a bargain, had never complained of
+neglect nor intimated that she found anything in him that savoured of
+imperfection. She had accepted him as a provider, and as he filled this
+part of the contract brilliantly, she felt that to treat him to scenes
+whose only excuse was outraged love or jealousy, would be both unjust
+and absurd. Moreover, his growing passion for his club was an immense
+relief after his somewhat prolonged term of marital uxoriousness, and
+as her mother died almost coincidentally with the abridgment of Mr.
+Blake’s home life, Ora returned to her studies, rode or walked for
+hours, and, after her double period of mourning was over, danced two or
+three times a week in the season, or sat out dances when she met a man
+that had cultivated his intellect. For women she cared little.
+It never occurred to Mark to be jealous of his passionless wife,
+although he would have asserted his authority if she had received men
+alone in the afternoon. But Ora paid a scrupulous deference to his
+wishes in all respects. She even taught herself to keep house, and
+her servants manners as well as the elements of edible cooking. This
+she regarded as her proudest feat, for she frankly hated the domestic
+details of life; although after three years in a “Block”,--a sublimated
+lodging house, peculiar to the Northwest--she enjoyed the space and
+privacy of her home. Mark told his friends that his wife was the most
+remarkable woman in Montana, rarely found fault, save in the purely
+mechanical fashion of the married male, and paid the bills without a
+murmur. Altogether it was a reasonably happy marriage.
+Ora Blake’s attitude to life at this time was expressed in the buoyancy
+of her step, the haughty carriage of her head, the cool bright
+casual glance she bestowed upon the world in general. Her code of
+morals, ethics, manners, as well as her acceptance of the last set of
+conditions she would have picked from the hands of Fate, was summed up
+in two words: _noblesse oblige_. Of her depths she knew as little as
+Gregory Compton of his.
+“This is Mrs. Compton, I am sure,” she said in her cool even voice, as
+she came up behind the elaborately unconscious and humming Ida. “I am
+Mrs. Blake.”
+“Pleased to meet you,” said Ida formally, extending a limp hand. “Come
+on inside.”
+Mrs. Blake closed her eyes as she entered the parlour, but opened them
+before Ida had adjusted the blower to the grate, and exclaimed brightly:
+“How clever of you to settle so quickly. I shouldn’t have dared to call
+for another fortnight, but Mr. Compton told my husband yesterday that
+you were quite in order. It was three months before I dared open my
+doors.”
+“Well,” drawled Ida, rocking herself, “I guess your friends are more
+critical than mine. And I guess you didn’t rely wholly on Butte for
+your furniture. I had Ma’s old junk, and the rest cost me just two
+hundred dollars.”
+“How very clever of you!” But although Mrs. Blake was doing her best to
+be spontaneous and impressed, Ida knew instantly that she had committed
+a solecism, and felt both angry and apprehensive. She was more afraid
+of this young woman than of her professor. Once more she wished that
+Mrs. Blake and the whole caboodle would leave her alone till she was
+good and ready.
+Ora hastened on to a safer topic, local politics. Butte, tired of
+grafting politicians, was considering the experiment of permitting a
+Socialist of good standing to be elected mayor. Ida, like all women of
+the smaller Western towns, was interested in local politics, and, glad
+of the impersonal topic, gave her visitor intelligent encouragement,
+the while she examined her critically. She finally summed her up in
+the word “pasty”, and at that stage of Ora Blake’s development the
+description was not inapt. She took little or no interest in her looks,
+although she dressed well by instinct; and nature, supplemented by
+her mother, had given her style. But her hair was almost colourless
+and worn in a tight knot just above her neck, her complexion was
+weather-beaten, her lips rather pale, and her body very thin. But when
+men whose first glance had been casual turned suddenly, wondering
+at themselves, to examine that face so lacking in the potencies of
+colouring, they discovered that the eyes, deeply set and far apart,
+were of a deep dark blazing grey, that the nose was straight and fine,
+the ears small, the mouth mobile, with a slight downward droop at the
+corners; also that her hands and feet were very slender, with delicate
+wrists and ankles. Ida, too, noted these points, but wondered where her
+“charm” came from. She knew that Mrs. Blake possessed this vague but
+desirable quality, in spite of her dread reputation as a “high-brow”,
+and her impersonal attitude toward men.
+Ruby had informed her that the men agreed she had charm if she would
+only condescend to exert it. “And I can feel it too,” she had added,
+“every time I do her nails--she never lets anyone do that hair of hers
+or give her a massage, which she needs, the Lord knows. But she’s got
+fascination, magnetism, whatever you like to call it, for all she’s so
+washed-out. Somehow, I always feel that if she’d wake up, get on to
+herself, she’d play the devil with men, maybe with herself.”
+Ida recalled the comments of the wise Miss Miller and frowned. This
+important feminine equipment she knew to be her very own, and although
+she would have been proud to admit the rivalry of a beautiful woman,
+she felt a sense of mortification in sharing that most subtle and
+fateful of all gifts, sex-magnetism, with one so colourless and
+plain. That the gifts possessed by this woman talking with such
+well-bred indifference of local affairs must be far more subtle than
+her own irritated her still more. It also filled her with a vague
+sense of menace, almost of helplessness. Later, when her brain was
+more accustomed to analysis, she knew that she had divined--her
+consciousness at that time too thick to formulate the promptings of
+instinct--that when man is taken unawares he is held more firmly
+captive.
+Ida, staring into those brilliant powerful eyes, felt a sudden
+desperate need to dive through their depths into this woman’s secret
+mind, to know her better at once, get rid of the sense of mystery that
+baffled and oppressed her. In short she must know where she was at
+and know it quick. It did not strike her until afterward as odd that
+she should have felt so intensely personal in regard to a woman whose
+sphere was not hers and whose orbit had but just crossed her own.
+For a time she floundered, but feminine instinct prompted the intimate
+note.
+“I saw you talkin’--talking to the professor,” she said casually. “I
+suppose you know your husband got him for me.”
+“I arranged it myself--” began Mrs. Blake, smiling, but Ida interrupted
+her sharply:
+“Greg--Mr. Compton didn’t tell me he had talked to you about it.”
+“Nor did he. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Compton but
+once--the day I married; he was my husband’s best man. Mark never
+can get him to come to the house, hardly to the club. But my husband
+naturally would turn over such a commission to me. I hope you found the
+little professor satisfactory.”
+“He’ll do, I guess. He knows an awful lot, and I have a pretty good
+memory. But to get--and practice--it all--well, I guess that takes
+years.” She imbued her tones with a pathetic wistfulness, and gazed
+upon her visitor with ingenuous eyes, brimming with admiration. “It
+must be just grand to have got all that education, and to have lived in
+Europe while you were growing up. Nothing later on that you can get is
+the same, I guess. You look just about as polished off as I look raw.”
+“Oh! No! No!” cried Ora deprecatingly, her cheeks flooding with a
+delicate pink that made her look very young and feminine. She had begun
+by disliking this dreadfully common person, but not only was she by
+no means as innocent of vanity as she had been trying for years to
+believe, but she was almost emotionally swift to respond to the genuine
+appeal. And, clever as she was, it was not difficult to delude her.
+“Of course I had advantages that I am grateful for, but I have a theory
+that it is never too late to begin. And you are so young--a few months
+of our professor--are you really ambitious?”
+“You bet.” Ida committed herself no further at the moment.
+“Then you will enjoy study--expanding and furnishing your mind. It is
+a wonderful sensation!” Mrs. Blake’s eyes were flashing now, her mouth
+was soft, her strong little chin with that cleft which always suggests
+a whirlpool, was lifted as if she were drinking. “The moment you are
+conscious that you are using the magic keys to the great storehouses
+of the world, its arts, its sciences, its records of the past--when
+you begin to help yourself with both hands and pack it away in your
+memory--always something new--when you realise that the store is
+inexhaustible--that in study at least there is no ennui--Oh, I can give
+you no idea of what it all means--you will find it out for yourself!”
+“Jimminy!” thought Ida. “I guess not! But that ain’t where her charm
+for men comes from, you bet!” Aloud she said, with awe in her voice:
+“No wonder you know so much when you like it like that. But don’t it
+make you--well--kinder lonesome?”
+“Sometimes--lately----” Mrs. Blake pulled herself up with a deep blush.
+“It has meant everything to me, that mental life, and it always shall!”
+The astute Ida noted the defiant ring in her voice, and plunged in. “I
+wonder now? Say, you’re a pretty woman and a young one, and they say
+men would go head over ears about you if you’d give ’em a show. You’ve
+got a busy husband and so have I. Husbands don’t companion much and you
+can’t make me believe learning’s all. Don’t you wish these American
+Turks of husbands would let us have a man friend occasionally? They
+say that in high society in the East and in Europe, the women have all
+the men come to call on them afternoons they like, but the ordinary
+American husband, and particularly out West--Lord! When a woman has a
+man call on her, she’s about ready to split with her husband--belongs
+to the fast set--and he’s quail hunting somewheres else. Of course I’ve
+known Mark all my life--and you who was--were brought up in the real
+world--it must be awful hard on you. Wouldn’t you like to try your
+power once in a while, see how far you could go--just for fun? I guess
+you’re not shocked?”
+“No, I’m not shocked,” said Ora, laughing. “But I don’t believe men
+interest me very much in that way--although, heaven knows, there are
+few more delightful sensations than talking to a man who makes you feel
+as if your brain were on fire. I don’t think I care to have American
+men, at least, become interested in me in any other way. In Europe----”
+She hesitated, and Ida leaned forward eagerly.
+“Oh, do tell me, Mrs. Blake! I don’t know a blamed thing. I’ve never
+been outside of Montana.”
+“Well--I mean--the American man takes love too seriously. I suppose
+it is because he is so busy--he has to take life so seriously. He
+specialises intensely. It is all or nothing with him. Of course I
+am talking about love. When they play about, it is generally with a
+class of women of which we have no personal knowledge. The European,
+with his larger leisure, and generations of leisure in his brain, his
+interest in everything, and knowledge of many things,--above all of the
+world,--has reduced gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his
+sentiment, his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, but
+his heart--well, unless he is very young--that remains quite intact.
+Love is the game of his life with a change of partner at reasonable
+intervals. In other words he is far too accomplished and sophisticated
+to be romantic. Now, your American man, although he looks the reverse
+of romantic, and is always afraid of making a fool of himself, when
+he does fall in love with a woman--say, across a legal barrier--must
+annihilate the barrier at once; in other words, elope or rush to the
+divorce court. It isn’t that he is more averse from a liaison than the
+European, but more thorough. It is all or nothing. In many respects he
+is far finer than the European, but he makes for turmoil, and, less
+subtle, he fails to hold our interest.”
+“You mean he don’t keep us guessing? Well, you’re right about most of
+them. I never saw a boy I couldn’t read like a page ad., until I met
+my husband. I thought I knew him, too, till I’d been married to him
+awhile. But, my land, he gets deeper every minute. I guess if I hadn’t
+married him he’d have kidnapped me, he was that gone, and forgetting
+anything else existed. Of course, I didn’t expect that to last, but I
+did think he’d go on being transparent. But, believe me, the Sphinx
+ain’t a patch on him. I sometimes think I don’t know him at all, and
+that keeps me interested.”
+“I should think it might!” exclaimed Mrs. Blake, thinking of her own
+standard possession. “But then Mr. Compton is a hard student, and
+is said to have a voracious as well as a brilliant mind. No doubt
+that is the secret of what appears on the surface as complexity and
+secretiveness. I know the symptoms!”
+“P’raps. But--well, I live with him, and I suspicion otherwise. I
+suspect him of having as many kind of leads, and cross-cuts, and
+‘pockets’, and veins full of different kinds of ore in him as we’ve
+got right under our feet in Butte Hill. Do you think”--she spoke with
+a charming wistfulness--“that when I know more, have opened up and let
+out my top story, as it were, I shall understand him better?”
+And again Ora responded warmly, “Indeed, yes, dear Mrs. Compton.
+It isn’t so much what you put into your mind--it’s more the reflex
+action of that personal collection in developing not only the mental
+faculties, but one’s intuitions, one’s power to understand others--even
+one whose interests are different, or whose knowledge is infinitely
+greater than our own.”
+“I believe you could even understand Greg!” Ida spoke involuntarily and
+stared with real admiration at the quickened face with its pink cheeks
+and flashing eyes, its childish mobile mouth. Ora at the moment looked
+beautiful. Suddenly Ida felt as if half-drowned in a wave of ambiguous
+terror. She sat up very straight.
+“I guess you’re right,” she said slowly. “You’ve made me see it as the
+others haven’t. I’ll work at all that measly little professor gives me,
+but--I don’t know--somehow, I can’t think he’ll do much more than make
+me talk decent. There’s nothing _to_ him.”
+Ora’s heart beat more quickly. Her indifference had vanished in this
+intimate hour, also her first subtle dislike of Ida, who’s commonness
+now seemed picturesque, and whose wistful almost complete ignorance
+had made a strong appeal to her sympathies. For the first time in her
+lonely life she felt that she had something to give. And here was raw
+and promising material ready and eager to be woven, if not into cloth
+of silver, at least into a quality of merchandise vastly superior to
+that which the rude loom of youth had so far produced. All she knew
+of Gregory Compton, moreover, made her believe in and admire him; the
+loneliness of his mental life with this woman appalled her. This was
+not the first time she had been forced to admit of late that under
+the cool bright surface of her nature were more womanly impulses than
+formerly, a spontaneous warmth that was almost like the quickening of
+a child; but she had turned from the consciousness with an impatient:
+“What nonsense! What on earth should I do with it?” The sense that she
+was of no vital use to anyone had discouraged her, dimmed her interest
+in her studies. Her husband could hire a better housekeeper, find a
+hundred girls who would companion him better. And what if she were
+_instruite_? So were thousands of women. Nothing was easier.
+But this clever girl of the people, who might before many years had
+passed be one of the rich and conspicuous women of the United States,
+above all, the wife of one of the nation’s “big men,” working himself
+beyond human capacity, harassed, needing not only physical comfort at
+home, but counsel, companionship, perfect understanding,--might it
+not be her destiny to equip Ida Compton for her double part? Ora’s
+imagination, the most precious and the most dangerous of her gifts,
+was at white heat. To her everlasting credit would be the fashioning
+of a helpmate for one of her country’s great men. It would be enough
+to do as much for the state which her imperfect father had loved so
+passionately; but her imagination would not confine Gregory Compton
+within the limitations of a state. It was more than likely that his
+destiny would prove to be national; and she had seen the wives of
+certain men eminent in political Washington, but of obscure origin.
+They were Ida’s mannered, grooved, crystallised; women to flee from.
+She leaned forward and took Ida’s hand in both of hers. “Dear Mrs.
+Compton!” she exclaimed. “Do let me teach you what little I know. I
+mean of art--history--the past--the present--I have portfolios of
+beautiful photographs of great pictures and scenes that I collected
+for years in Europe. It will do me so much good to go over them. I
+haven’t had the courage to look at them for years. And the significant
+movements, social, political, religious,--all this theft under so
+many different names,--Christian Science, the ‘Uplift’ Movement,
+Occultism--from the ancient Hindu philosophy--it would be delightful to
+go into it with someone. I am sure I could make it all most interesting
+to you.”
+“My Gorrd!” thought Ida. “Two of ’em! What am I let in for?” But the
+undefined sharp sense of terror lingered, and she answered when she got
+her breath,
+“I’d like it first rate. The work in this shack is nothing. Mr.
+Compton leaves first thing in the morning, and don’t show up till
+nearly six. The professor’s coming for an hour every other afternoon.
+But if I go to your house I want it understood that I don’t meet anyone
+else. I’ve got my reasons.”
+“You shall not meet a soul. Can’t you imagine how sick I am of Butte?
+We’ll have heavenly times. I was wondering only the other day of what
+use was all this heterogeneous mass of stuff I’d put into my head.
+But,” she added gaily, “I know now it was for you to select from. I am
+so glad. And--and----” Her keen perceptions suggested a more purely
+feminine bait. “You were with Madame O’Reilley, were you not? I get my
+things from a very good dressmaker in New York. Perhaps you would like
+to copy some of them?”
+“Aw! Would I?” Ida gasped and almost strangled. For the first time
+during this the most trying day of her life she felt wholly herself.
+“You may just bet your life I would. I need new duds the worst way,
+even if I’m not a West Sider. I’ve been on a ranch for nearly a year
+and a half, and although Mr. Compton won’t take me to any balls, there
+are the movin’ pictures and the mats--matinees; _and_ the street, where
+I have to show up once in a while! I used to think an awful lot of my
+looks and style, and I guess it’s time to begin again. I can sew first
+rate, make any old thing. Do you mean it?”
+“Indeed I do! I _want_ to be of help to you in every way.” She rose and
+held Ida’s hand once more in hers, although she did not kiss her as
+another woman might have done. “Will you come tomorrow--about two?”
+“You may bet your bottom dollar I’ll come. I haven’t thanked you, but
+maybe I’ll do that some other way.”
+“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs. Blake lightly.
+IX
+Butte, “the richest hill in the world” (known at a period when less
+famous for metals and morals as “Perch of the Devil”), is a long
+scraggy ridge of granite and red and grey dirt rising abruptly out of
+a stony uneven plain high in the Rocky Mountains. The city is scooped
+out of its south slope, and overflows upon The Flat. Big Butte, an
+equally abrupt protuberance, but higher, steeper, more symmetrical,
+stands close beside the treasure vault, but with the aloof and somewhat
+cynical air of even the apocryphal volcano. On all sides the sterile
+valley heaves away as if abruptly arrested in a throe of the monstrous
+convulsion that begat it; but pressing close, cutting the thin
+brilliant air with its icy peaks, is an irregular and nearly circular
+chain of mountains, unbroken white in winter, white on the blue
+enamelled slopes in summer.
+For nearly half the year the whole scene is white, with not a tree,
+nor, beyond the straggling town itself, a house to break its frozen
+beauty. It is only when the warm Chinook wind roars in from the west
+and melts the snow much as lightning strikes, or when Summer herself
+has come, that you realize the appalling surface barrenness of this
+region devastated for many years by the sulphur and arsenic fumes of
+ore roasted in the open or belching from the smelters. They ate up
+the vegetation, and the melting snows and heavy June rains washed the
+weakened earth from the bones of valley and mountain, leaving both as
+stark as they must have been when the earth ceased to rock and began to
+cool. Since the smelters have gone to Anaconda, patches of green, of a
+sad and timid tenderness, like the smile of a child too long neglected,
+have appeared between the sickly grey boulders of the foothills, and,
+in Butte, lawns as large as a tablecloth have been cultivated. Anaconda
+Hill at the precipitous eastern end of the city, with its tangled mass
+of smokestacks, gallows-frames, shabby grey buildings, trestles, looks
+like a gigantic shipwreck, but is merely the portal to the precious
+ore bodies of the mines whose shafts, levels, and cross-cuts to the
+depth of three thousand feet and more, pierce and ramify under city
+and valley. These hideous buildings through which so many hundreds of
+millions have passed, irrupt into the very back yards of some of the
+homes, built too far east (and before mere gold and silver gave place
+to copper); but the town improves as it leaps westward. The big severe
+solid buildings to be found in every modern city sure of its stability
+crowd the tumble-down wood structures of a day when no man looked upon
+Butte as aught but a camp. And although the streets are vociferously
+cobbled, the pavements are civilised here and there.
+Farther west the houses of the residence section grow more and more
+imposing, coinciding with the sense of Butte’s inevitableness. On the
+high western rim of the city (which exteriorly has as many ups and
+downs as the story of its vitals) stands the red School of Mines. It
+has a permanent expression of surprise, natural to a bit of Italian
+renaissance looking down upon Butte.
+Some of the homes, particularly those of light pressed brick, and one
+that looks like the northeast corner of the upper story of a robber
+stronghold of the middle ages, are models of taste and not too modest
+symbols of wealth; but north and south and east and west are the snow
+wastes in winter and the red or grey untidy desert of sand and rock in
+summer.
+But if Butte is the ugliest city in the United States, she knows
+how to make amends. She is alive to her finger-tips. Her streets,
+her fine shops, her hotels, her great office buildings, are always
+swarming and animated. At no time, not even in the devitalised hours
+that precede the dawn, does she sink into that peace which even a
+metropolis welcomes. She has the jubilant expression of one who coins
+the very air, the thin, sparkling, nervous air, into shining dollars,
+and, confident in the inexhaustible riches beneath her feet, knows
+that she shall go on coining them forever. Even the squads of miners,
+always, owing to the three shifts, to be seen on the street corners,
+look satisfied and are invariably well-dressed. Not only do these
+mines with their high wages and reasonable hours draw the best class
+of workingmen, but there are many college men in them, many more
+graduates from the High Schools of Montana. The “Bohunks,” or “dark
+men,” an inferior class of Southern Europeans, who live like pigs and
+send their wages home, rarely if ever are seen in these groups.
+And if Butte be ugly, hopelessly, uncompromisingly ugly, her
+compensation is akin to that of many an heiress: she never forgets
+that she is the richest hill in the world. Even the hard grip of the
+most unassailable trust in America, which has absorbed almost as much
+of Montana’s surface as of its hidden treasure, does not interfere
+with her prosperity or supreme complacency. And although she has
+her pestilential politicians, her grafters and crooks, and is so
+tyrannically unionized that the workingman groans under the yoke of his
+brother and forgets to curse the trust, yet ability and talent make
+good as always; and in that electrified city of permanent prosperity
+there is a peculiar condition that offsets its evils: it is a city of
+sudden and frequent vacancies. New York, Europe, above all, California,
+swarm with former Montanans, particularly of Butte, who have coppered
+their nests, and transplanted them with a still higher sense of
+achievement.
+Ora was thinking of Butte and the world beyond Butte, as she splashed
+along through the suddenly melted snow toward her home on the West
+Side. The Chinook, loud herald from Japan, had swept down like an army
+in the night and turned the crisp white streets to rivers of mud. But
+Ora wore stout walking boots, and her short skirt, cut by a master
+hand, was wide enough to permit the impatient stride she never had
+been able to modify in spite of her philosophy and the altitude. She
+walked several miles a day and in all weathers short of a blizzard; but
+not until the past few weeks with the admission that her increasing
+restlessness, her longing for Europe, was growing out of bonds. She
+wondered today if it were Europe she wanted, or merely a change.
+She had, of course, no money of her own, and never had ceased to be
+grateful that her husband’s prompt and generous allowance made it
+unnecessary to ask alms of him. Three times since her marriage he had
+suddenly presented her with a check for several hundred dollars and
+told her to “give her nerves a chance” either down “on the coast,”
+or in New York. She had always fled to New York, remained a month
+or six weeks, gone day and night to opera, theatre, concerts, art
+exhibitions, not forgetting her tailor and dressmaker; returning to
+Butte as refreshed as if she had taken her heart and nerves, overworked
+by the altitude, down to the poppy fields of Southern California.
+Her vacations and her husband’s never coincided. Mark always departed
+at a moment’s notice for Chicago or New York, alleging pressing
+business. He returned, after equally pressing delays, well, complacent,
+slightly apologetic.
+Ora knew that she had but to ask permission to spend the rest of
+the winter in New York, for not only was Mark the most indulgent of
+husbands, but he was proud of his wife’s connections in the American
+Mecca, not unwilling to read references in the Butte newspapers to her
+sojourn among them. The “best people” of these Western towns rarely
+have either friends or relatives in the great cities of the East. The
+hardy pioneer is not recruited from the aristocracies of the world, and
+the dynamic men and women that have made the West what it is have the
+blood of the old pioneers in them.
+Ora was one of the few exceptions. Her father had been the last of a
+distinguished line of jurists unbroken since Jonathan Stratton went
+down with Alexander Hamilton in the death struggle between the Federal
+and the new Republican party. Ora’s mother, one of New York’s imported
+beauties for a season, who had languished theretofore on the remnants
+of a Louisiana plantation, impecunious and ambitious, but inexperienced
+and superficially imaginative, married the handsome and brilliant
+lawyer for love, conceiving that it would be romantic to spend a few
+years in a mining camp, where she, indubitably, would be its dominant
+lady. Butte did not come up to her ideas of romance. Nor had she found
+it possible to dislodge the passively determined women with the pioneer
+blood in their veins. The fumes afflicted her delicate lungs, the
+altitude her far more delicate nerves. Judge Stratton deposited her in
+the drawing-room of an eastern bound train with increasing relish. Had
+it not been for his little girl he would have bade her upon the second
+or third of these migrations to establish herself in Paris and return
+no more.
+During these long pilgrimages Ora, even while attending school in New
+York, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vevey, had seen something of society, for
+Mrs. Stratton was ever surrounded by it, and did not approve of the
+effect of boarding school diet on the complexion. But the ardours of
+her mind, encouraged always by her father, who never was too busy to
+write to her, had made her indifferent to the advantages prized by Mrs.
+Stratton.
+Today she was conscious of a keen rebellious desire for something more
+frivolous, light, exciting, than had entered her life for many a year.
+There can be little variety and no surprises in the social life of a
+small community--for even scandal and divorce grow monotonous--and
+although she could always enjoy an hour’s intellectual companionship
+with the professors of the School of Mines, whenever it pleased her
+to summon them, Ora, for the first time in her twenty-six years, had
+drifted into a condition of mind where intellectual revels made no
+appeal to her whatever.
+She had wondered before this if her life would have been purely mental
+had her obligations been different, but had dismissed the thought as
+not only dangerous but ungrateful. She had reason to go on her knees
+to her intellect, its ambitions and its furniture, for without it life
+would have been insupportable. She ordered her quickening ego back
+to the rear, or the depths, or wherever it bided its time, none too
+amenable; she was only beginning to guess the proportions it might
+assume if encouraged; the vague phantoms floating across her mind,
+will-o’-the-wisps in a fog bank, frightened her. Several months since
+she had set her lips, and her mind the task of acquiring the Russian
+language. It had always been her experience that nothing compared with
+a new language as a mental usurper.
+She had entered into a deliberate partnership with a man who protected
+and supported her, and she would keep the letter, far as its spirit
+might be beyond the reach of her will. Even were she to become
+financially independent, it was doubtful if she would leave him for
+a long period; and for New York and its social diversions she cared
+not at all. What she wanted was adventure--she stumbled on the word,
+and stopped with a gasp. Adventure. For the first time she wished she
+were a man. She would pack two mules with a prospector’s outfit and
+disappear into the mountains.
+She swung her mind to the Russian grammar, enough to impale it in
+the death agony; but when she had entered her home, and, after a
+visit to her leisurely cook, who was a unionized socialist, ascended
+to her bedroom and stood before her mirror, she decided that it was
+her singular interview with the wife of Gregory Compton that had
+thrown her mind off its delicate balance. She recalled that Mrs.
+Compton--certainly an interesting creature in spite of her appalling
+commonness--had told her flagrantly that she was young, pretty, and
+attractive to men, even as are young and pretty women without too much
+brains. The compliment--or was it the suggestion?--had thrilled her,
+and it thrilled her again. Men sometimes had tried to make love to
+her, but she had ascribed such charm as she appeared to possess to the
+automatically vibrating magnet of youth; and although she had never
+been above a passing flirtation, either in her mother’s salon or in
+Butte, she merely had been bored if the party of the other part had
+taken his courage in his hands on the morrow. Scruples did not trouble
+her. The American woman, she would have reasoned, is traditionally
+“cold.” American men, brought up on her code of ethics, are able to
+take care of themselves.
+Had she been superficial in her conclusions? Could she attract men
+more potently than by a merely girlish charm and a vivacious mind? Her
+memory ran rapidly over the functions of the winter, particularly the
+dinners and dances. She could not recall a passing conquest. She was
+angry to feel herself shiver, but she jerked off her hat, and the pins
+out of her fine abundant hair. She was twenty-six. Had she gone off?
+Faded? She never had been called a beauty, never had had the vanity
+to think herself a beauty, but she remembered that sometimes in an
+animated company she had glanced into the passing mirror and thought
+herself quite pretty, with her pink cheeks and sparkling eyes. But
+normally she was too washed-out for beauty, however good her features
+might be, and of course she had no figure at all. She dressed well from
+force of habit, and she had the carriage at least to set off smartly
+cut garments, but as much might be said of a dressmaker’s “form.”
+And her skin was sallow and sunburned and weather-beaten and dry, as
+any neglected skin in a high altitude is sure to be. Once it had been
+as white as her native snows. Her hair, also the victim of the high
+dry air, and exposed to the elements for hours together, was more
+colourless than Nature had made it--dull--dead. She held out a strand
+in dismay, remembering how her _cendré_ hair had been admired in Paris;
+then with a sudden sense of relief (it escaped from the cellar where
+her ego was immured on bread and water) she informed herself that it
+was her duty to invoke the services of Miss Ruby Miller. No woman with
+proper pride--or self-respect--would let her skin go to pot, no, not
+at any age; certainly not at twenty-six. She recalled an impulsive
+remark of Miss Miller’s a few months since when arranging her hair for
+a fancy-dress ball, and gave another sigh--of hope.
+So does Nature avenge herself.
+X
+She heard her husband’s voice as he entered the house, and hastily
+changed her walking suit for one of the soft tea gowns she wore when
+they were alone. This was a simple thing of a Copenhagen-blue silk,
+with a guimpe of fine white net, and trimmed about the neck and half
+sleeves with the newest and softest of the year’s laces. She noticed
+with some satisfaction that her neck, below the collar line, was very
+white; and she suddenly covered the rest of it with powder, then rubbed
+the puff over her face. It was ordinary “baby powder” for the bath,
+for she never had indulged in toilet accessories, but it answered
+its purpose, if only to demonstrate what she might have been had she
+safeguarded the gifts of nature. And the dull blue gown was suddenly
+becoming.
+Her husband, who had spent the intervening time in the library, ran
+upstairs whistling in spite of his girth--he was the lightest dancer in
+Butte--and knocked on her door before going to his own room.
+“Say,” he said, as he chucked her under the chin, and kissed her
+maritally, “but you look all right. Run down stairs and hold your
+breath until I’ve made myself beautiful. I’ve got big news for you.”
+She rustled softly down the stair, wondering what the news might be,
+but not unduly interested. Mark was always excited over his new cases.
+Perhaps he had been retained by Amalgamated. She hoped so. He deserved
+it, for he worked harder than anyone knew. And she liked him sincerely,
+quite without mitigation now that the years had taught him the folly of
+being in love with her.
+And he certainly had given her a pretty home. The house was not large
+enough to be pointed out by the conductor of the “Seeing Butte Car,”
+but it had been designed by a first rate architect, and had a certain
+air of spaciousness within. Mrs. Stratton had furnished a flat in
+Paris two years before her husband’s death, her excuse being that the
+interior of the Butte house got on her nerves, and there was no other
+way to take in household goods free of duty. Ora had shipped them when
+the news of her father’s death and their own poverty came, knowing that
+she would get a better price for the furniture in Butte, where someone
+always was building, than in Paris.
+Before it arrived she had made up her mind to marry Mark Blake, and
+although it was several years before they had a house she kept it in
+storage. In consequence her little drawing-room with its gay light
+formal French furniture was unique in Butte, city of substantial and
+tasteful (sometimes) but quite unindividual homes. Mark was thankful
+that he was light of foot, less the bull in the china shop than he
+looked, and would have preferred red walls, an oriental divan and
+Persian rugs. He felt more at home in the library, a really large room
+lined from floor to ceiling not only with Ora’s but Judge Stratton’s
+books, which Mark had bought for a song at the auction; and further
+embellished with deep leather chairs and several superb pieces of
+carved Italian furniture. Ora spent the greater part of her allowance
+on books, and many hours of her day in this room. But tonight she
+deliberately went into the frivolous French parlour, turned on all the
+lights, and sat down to await her husband’s reappearance.
+Mark, who had taken kindly to the idea of dressing for dinner, came
+running downstairs in a few moments.
+“In the doll’s house?” he called out, as he saw the illumination in the
+drawing-room. “Oh, come on into a real room and mix me a cocktail.”
+“It isn’t good for you to drink cocktails so long before eating;
+Huldah, who receives ‘The People’s War Cry’ on Monday, informed me that
+dinner would be half an hour late.”
+“I wish you’d chuck that wooden-faced leaden-footed apology for a
+servant. This is the third time----”
+“And get a worse? Butte rains efficient servants! Please sit down.
+I--_feel_ like this room tonight. You may smoke.”
+“Thanks. I believe this is the first time you have given me permission.
+But I’m bound to say the room suits you.”
+Ora sat in a _chaise-longue_ of the XV^{me} Siècle, a piece of
+furniture whose awkward grace gives a woman’s arts full scope. Much
+exercise had preserved the natural suppleness of Ora’s body and she had
+ancestral memories of all arts and wiles. Mark seated himself on the
+edge of a stiff little sofa covered with faded Aubusson tapestry, and
+hunched his shoulders.
+“If the French women furnish their rooms like this I don’t believe
+all that’s said about them,” he commented wisely. “Men like to be
+comfortable even when they’re looking at a pretty woman.”
+“Mama let me choose the furniture for this room, and I wasn’t thinking
+much about your sex at the time. I--I think it expressed a side of me
+that I wasn’t conscious of then.”
+“It’s a pretty room all right.” Mark lit the consolatory cigarette.
+“But not to sit in. What struck you tonight?”
+“Oh, I’d been thinking of Paris.”
+Mark’s face was large and round and bland; it was only when he drew his
+brows together that one saw how small and sharp his eyes were.
+“H’m. I’ve wondered sometimes if you weren’t hankering after Europe. I
+suppose it gets into the blood.”
+“Oh, yes, it gets into the blood!” Ora spoke lightly, but she was
+astonished at his insight.
+“I’ve never been able to send you--not as you were used to going--I
+don’t see you doing anything on the cheap----”
+“Oh, my dear Mark, you are goodness itself. I’ve thought very little
+about it, really.”
+“Suppose you found yourself suddenly rich, would you light out and
+leave me?”
+“We’d go together. It would be great fun being your cicerone.”
+“No chance! I’m going to be a rich man inside the next ten years, and
+here I stick. And I don’t see myself travelling on a woman’s money,
+either. But I suppose you’d be like all the rest if you could afford
+it?”
+“Oh, I don’t know. Of course I look forward to spending a year in
+Europe once more--I’d hardly be human if I didn’t. But I can wait for
+you.”
+“I’ve always admired your philosophy,” he said grimly. “And now I’ve
+got a chance to put it to a real test. I believe you are in a way, if
+not to be rich, at least to make a pretty good haul.”
+“What do you mean?” Ora sat up straight.
+“Your father made a good many wild-cat investments when he first came
+out here, and the one he apparently thought the worst, for I found no
+mention of it among his papers, was the Oro Fino Primo mine, which he
+bought from a couple of sharks in the year you were born--that’s where
+you got your name, I guess. One of the men was a well known prospector
+and the Judge thought he was safe. The ore assayed about eighty dollars
+a ton, so he took over the claim, paid the Lord knows how much to the
+prospector, who promptly lit out, had it patented, and set a small crew
+to work under a manager. They found nothing but low grade ore, which
+in those days roused about as much enthusiasm as country rock. The
+mine had been salted, of course. It was some time before your father
+would give up, and he spent more than the necessary amount of money
+to perfect the patent; always hoping. When he was finally convinced
+there was nothing in it he quit. And it was characteristic of your
+father that when he quit he quit for good. He simply dismissed the
+thing from his mind. Well, times have changed since then. New processes
+and more railroads have caused fortunes to be made out of low grade
+ore when there is enough of it. Some people would rather have a big
+lode of low grade ore than a pockety vein of rich quartz. As you know,
+abandoned mines are being leased all over the state, and abandoned
+prospect holes investigated. Well, there you are. This morning two
+mining engineers from New York came into my office with a tale of woe.
+They came out here to look about, and after considerable travel within
+a reasonable distance of railroads found an old prospect hole with a
+shaft sunk about fifty feet. It looked abandoned all right, but as
+the dump was still there and they liked the looks of it they went to
+the De Smet ranch house--the hole is just over the border of Greg’s
+ranch--and made inquiries. Oakley, who is a monomaniac on the subject
+of intensive farming and doesn’t know a mine from a gopher hole, told
+them that the adjacent land belonged to no one but the government.
+So they staked their claim, recorded it in Virginia City, retimbered
+the shaft and sank it twenty feet deeper. They began to take out ore
+that looked good for fifteen dollars a ton. Then along comes an old
+prospector and tells them the story of the mine. They leave their two
+miners on the job and post up to Helena to have the records examined
+in the Land Office. There, sure enough, they find that the mine was
+duly patented by Judge Stratton, and all of the government requirements
+complied with. So they come to me. They want a bond and lease for
+three years--which means they may have the privilege of buying at the
+end of the lease--and offer you ten per cent. on the net proceeds. I
+haven’t given them my answer yet, for I’m going to take Greg out there
+next Sunday and have a look at it. There was a sort of suppressed
+get-rich-quickishness in their manner, and their offer was not what
+you would call munificent. Greg is a born geologist, to say nothing
+of his training. I don’t mean so much in the School of Mines, but he
+was always gophering about with old prospectors, and ran away into the
+mountains several times when his father was alive. Never showed up all
+summer. He’s at ore now every spare moment he gets, and is as good an
+assayer as there is in the state. If there’s mineral on his own ranch
+he’ll find it, and if there isn’t he’ll find it elsewhere. So, I do
+nothing till he’s looked the property over. But in any case I think I
+can promise you a good lump of money.”
+Ora’s breath was short. Her face had been scarlet for a few moments
+but now showed quite pale under the tan and powder. When her husband
+finished, however, and she replied, “How jolly,” her voice was quite
+steady.
+“And shall you fly off and leave me if it pans out?”
+“Of course not. What do you take me for?”
+“To tell you the truth it will mean a good deal to me if you stay until
+the fall. I’ve a client coming out here from New York whom I am trying
+to persuade to buy the old Iron Hat mine. There’s a fortune in it for
+anyone with money enough to spend rebuilding the old works and putting
+in new machinery and timbers; and a big rake-off for me, if I put the
+deal through. Well, this client figures to bring his wife and daughter,
+and you could help me a lot--persuade them they’d have the time of
+their lives if they spent several months of every year out here for
+a while--he’s a domestic sort of man. After that take a flyer if you
+like. You deserve it.”
+“How nice of you! Here is dinner at last.” Ora felt almost physically
+sick, so dazzling had been the sudden prospect of deliverance,
+followed by the certainty, even before her husband asked for the
+diplomatic assistance she so often had given him, that she could not
+take advantage of it. Noblesse oblige! For the moment she hated her
+watchword.
+She mixed a cocktail with steady hand. “I’ll indulge in a perfect orgie
+of clothes!” she said gaily. “And import a chef. By the way,” she
+added, as she seated herself at the table and straightened the knives
+and forks beside her plate, “what do you think I let myself in for
+today?”
+“Not been speculating? There’s a quart of Worcestershire in this soup.”
+“I’ll certainly treat you to a chef. No, not speculating--I wonder if
+it mightn’t be that? I called on your friend’s wife----”
+“Good girl! She’s not your sort, but she’s Greg’s wife----”
+“I thought she was quite terrible at first, but I soon became
+interested. She’s clever in her way, ignorant as she is, and has
+individuality. Before I knew it I had offered to take a hand in her
+education----”
+“Good lord! What sort of a hand?”
+“Oh, just showing her my portfolios, giving her some idea of art. It
+sounds very elemental, but one must begin somewhere. She knows so
+little that it will be like teaching a child a b c.”
+“I’m afraid it will bore you.”
+“No, I like the idea. It is something new, and change is good for the
+soul. I have an idea that I shall continue to find her as interesting
+as I intend she shall find the ‘lessons’.”
+“She’ll get more than lessons on art. She’ll get a good tone down, and
+she needs that all right. Poor old Greg! He deserved the best and he
+got Ida Hook. I tried to head him off but I might as well have tried to
+head off a stampede to a new gold diggings. He ought to have married a
+lady, that’s what.”
+Ora glanced up quickly, then, thankful that her husband was intent upon
+his carving, dropped her eyes. It was the first time he had ever hinted
+at the differences of class. In his boyhood there had been a mighty
+gulf between his mother and the haughty Mrs. Stratton who employed her
+in what was then the finest house in Butte. But he was too thoroughly
+imbued with the spirit of the West, in which he had spent his life,
+to recognise any difference in class save that which was determined
+by income. As soon as his own abilities, industry, and the turn of
+Fortune’s wheel, placed him in a position to offer support to the two
+dainty women that had been his ideals from boyhood, he knew himself to
+be their equal, without exhausting himself in analysis.
+As for Ora, the West was quick in her blood, in spite of her heritage
+and education. Her father had assumed the virtue of democracy when
+he settled in Montana. In the course of a few years a genuine liking
+and enthusiasm for his adopted state, as well as daily associations,
+transformed him into as typical a Westerner as the West ever turned out
+of her ruthless crucible. He even wore a Stetson hat when he visited
+New York. His wife’s “airs” had inspired him with an increasing disgust
+which was one of the most honest emotions of his life, and the text
+of his repeated warnings to his daughter, whom he was forced to leave
+to the daily guidance of his legal wife (Ora’s continued presence
+in Butte, would, in truth, have caused him much embarrassment), had
+been to cherish her Western birthright as the most precious of her
+possessions.
+“Remember this is the twentieth century,” he had written to her not
+long before his death. “There is no society in the world today that
+cannot be invaded by a combination of money, brains, and a certain
+social talent--common enough. The modern man, particularly in the
+United States, makes himself. His ancestors count for nothing, if he
+doesn’t. If he does they may be a good asset, for they (possibly) have
+given him breeding ready-made, moral fibre, and a brain of better
+composition than the average man of the people can expect. But that is
+only by the way. The two most potent factors in the world today are
+money and the waxing, rising, imperishable democratic spirit. That was
+reborn out here in the West, and the West is invading and absorbing
+the East. The old un-American social standards of the East are
+expiring in the present generation, which resort to every absurdity to
+maintain them; its self-consciousness betraying its recognition of the
+inevitable. Twenty years hence this class will be, if still clinging
+to its spar, as much of a national joke as the Western women were when
+they first flashed their diamonds in Peacock Alley. That phase, you
+may notice, is so dead that the comic papers have forgotten it. The
+phase was inevitable, but our women are now so accustomed to their
+money that they are not to be distinguished from wealthy women anywhere
+except that their natural hospitality and independence make them seem
+more sure of themselves. Of course the innately vulgar are to be found
+everywhere, and nowhere more abundantly than in New York.
+“Twenty years from now, the West will have overrun the East; it will
+have helped itself with both hands to all the older civilisation has to
+give, and it will have made New York as democratic as Butte--or London!
+So don’t let yourself grow up with any old-fashioned nonsense in your
+head. I want you to start out in life modern to the core, unhampered
+by any of the obsolete notions that make your mother and most of our
+relations a sort of premature has-beens. When your time comes to
+marry, select a Western man who either has made his own fortune or
+has the ability to make it. Don’t give a thought to his origin if his
+education is good, and his manners good enough. You can supply the
+frills. I wouldn’t have you marry a man that lacked the fundamentals of
+education at least, but better that than one whose brain is so full of
+old-fashioned ideas that it has no room for those that are born every
+minute. And I hope you will settle here in this state and do something
+for it, either through the abilities of the man you marry or with your
+own. It isn’t only the men that build up a new state. And if you marry
+a foreigner never let me see nor hear from you again. They are all very
+well in their way, but it is not our way.”
+Ora, who had worshipped her father and admired him above all men, never
+forgot a word he uttered, and knew his letters by heart. Possibly it
+was the memory of this last of his admonitions which had enabled her
+to sustain the shock of a proposal from the son of her mother’s old
+seamstress and of a miner who had died in his overalls underground.
+It is doubtful if she would have been conscious of the shock had it
+not been for Mrs. Stratton’s lamentations. That lady from her sofa in
+one of the humbler Blocks, had sent wail after wail in the direction
+of the impertinent aspirant. Ora, during the brief period in which
+she made her decision, heard so much about the “bluest blood of the
+South,” and the titled foreigners whom she apparently could have had
+for the accepting when she was supposed to belong to the Millionaire
+Sisterhood, that she began to ponder upon the violent contrasts
+embodied in Mark with something like rapture. After the marriage was
+accomplished, Mrs. Stratton had the grace to wail in solitude, and
+shortly after moved on to a world where only the archangels are titled
+and never have been known to marry. Ora had not given the matter
+another thought. Mark had been carefully brought up by a refined little
+woman, his vicious tendencies had been negligible, and he was too
+keen to graduate from the High School and make his start in life to
+waste time in even the milder forms of dissipation. When he married he
+adapted himself imperceptibly to the new social world he entered; if
+not a Beau Brummel, nor an Admirable Crichton, he never would disgrace
+his aristocratic wife; and, unlike Judge Stratton, he wore a silk hat
+in New York.
+His last remark apparently had been a mere vapour from his subconscious
+mind, for he went on as soon as he had taken the edge from his
+appetite, “Perhaps Ida Hook can be made into one. I’ve seen waitresses
+and chambermaids metamorphosed by a million or two so that their own
+husbands wouldn’t recognise them if they stayed away too long. But
+it takes time, and Ida has an opinion of herself that would make an
+English duchess feel like a slag dump. Say--do you know it was through
+me Greg met her? It was that week you were out on the Kelley ranch.
+I met two or three of the old crowd on the street and nothing would
+do but that I should go to their picnic for the sake of old times.
+Greg was in town and I persuaded him to come along. Didn’t want to,
+but I talked him over. Guess there’s no escaping our fate. Possibly
+I couldn’t have corralled him if it hadn’t been for reaction--he’d
+been whooping it up on The Flat. Well, I wished afterward that I’d
+left him to play the wheel and all the rest of it for a while longer.
+Greg never loses his head--that is to say he never did till he met Ida
+Hook. The sporting life never took a hold on him, for while he went
+in for it with the deep deliberation that was born in him, it’s just
+that deliberation that saves him from going too far. He cuts loose
+the minute he figured out beforehand to cut loose, and all the king’s
+horses--or all the other attractions--couldn’t make him put in another
+second. A girl shot herself one night out at the Five Mile House
+because he suddenly said good-bye and turned on his heel. She knew he
+meant it. He never even turned round when he heard her drop----”
+“What a brute!”
+“Greg? Not he. I’ve known him to sit up all night with a sick dog----”
+“I hate people that are kind to animals and cruel to one another.”
+“Greg isn’t cruel. He said he was going and he went; that’s all. It’s
+his way. Girls of that kind are trash, anyhow, and when a woman goes
+into the sporting life she knows enough to take sporting chances.”
+“You are as bad as he.”
+Mark stared at her in open-eyed amazement. He never had seen her really
+roused before. “Don’t you bother your dear little head,” he said
+soothingly. “Angels like you don’t know anything about that sort of
+life--and don’t need to.”
+Ora’s anger vanished in laughter. “Well, suppose you give me a hint
+about his wife. I really am interested, and delighted at the prospect
+of being of some use in the world.”
+“You’re all right! Ida--well, I guess you’ll do a lot for her, by just
+having her round. She’s no fool--and she certainly is a looker. If you
+tone her down and polish her up I’ll feel it’s a sort of favour to
+myself. Greg’ll be one of the richest men in this country some day,--if
+he has to walk over a few thousand fellow citizens to get there--and I
+don’t want to see him queered by a woman. Seen that before.”
+“I intend to do my best, but for her sake, not his----”
+“Say!” It was patent that Mark had an inspiration. “Why not take Ida
+with you to Europe? I don’t like the idea of a dainty little thing like
+you” (Ora was five feet six) “travelling alone, and a husky girl like
+Ida could take care of you while putting on a few coats of European
+polish. Greg can afford it; he must have cleared a good many thousands
+on his ranch during the last two years, besides what I’ve turned over
+for him; and he can live here with me and get all the comforts of
+home. I’ll let you off for six months. What do you say?”
+Ora was looking at him with pink cheeks and bright eyes. “You are sure
+you won’t mind?”
+“I’ll miss you like fun, of course; especially when you look as pretty
+as you do this minute, but I think it would be a good thing for you and
+better for Ida--and I’ll fire this cook.”
+“Will Mr. Compton give his consent?”
+“No one on God’s earth would take chances on what Gregory Compton would
+do until he had done it, but I don’t mind throwing a guess that he
+could live without Ida for six months and not ask me to dry his tears.
+And there isn’t a mean bone in his body.”
+“It would interest me immensely to take Mrs. Compton abroad. Now hurry
+if you expect to get a seat at one of the bridge tables. It is late----”
+“I rather thought I’d like to stay and talk to you----”
+“How polite of you! But I’m tired out and going straight to bed. So
+toddle along.”
+XI
+“Tailored suits have to be made by a tailor, but I’d like first rate to
+copy this one you call a little afternoon frock. It’s got the style all
+right, and I could get some cheap nice-looking stuff.”
+Ida was gloating over Ora’s limited but fashionable wardrobe, and
+while she held the smart afternoon frock out at arm’s length, her eye
+wandered to an evening gown of blue satin and chiffon that lay over the
+back of a chair.
+“Glory!” she sighed. “But I’d like to wear a real gown like that.
+Low-neck, short sleeves! I’ve got the neck and arms too, you bet----”
+“Why not copy it?” Ora was full of enthusiasm once more. “You can do it
+here, and I have an excellent seamstress----”
+“Where’d I wear a rig like that? Even if I made it in China silk and
+Greg took me anywheres, I couldn’t. We don’t go in for real low necks
+in our bunch.”
+“But surely you’ll go to the Junior Prom?”
+Ida opened her mouth as well as her eyes. “The Junior Prom? I never
+thought of it. Of course I’d be asked, Greg being in the Junior Class
+and all----”
+“Naturally.”
+Ida frowned. “Well, I ain’t going. I said I wouldn’t go anywheres--to
+any swell blowouts, until I’m as big as anybody there.”
+“But the School of Mines is composed of young men of all classes. Each
+asks his friends. The Prom is anything but an exclusive affair. You go
+out to the Garden dances on Friday nights in summer?”
+“Oh, in that jam--and everybody wearing their suits, or any old
+thing----”
+“Well, I think you should go to the Prom. Mr. Compton is the star pupil
+in the School of Mines. The professors talk of no one else. I rather
+think your absence would cause comment.”
+“Well--maybe I’ll go. I’d like to all right. But I can’t wear low-neck.
+I guess you know it wouldn’t do.”
+“No doubt you are right.” Ora made no attempt at conversion; it was
+encouraging that Ida had certain inclinations toward good taste, even
+if they were prompted by expediency.
+“Jimminy, but your room’s pretty!” exclaimed Ida. “Mine’s pink--but
+lawsy!”
+She gazed about the room, which, although she never had seen the sea,
+recalled descriptions of its shells washed by its foam. She knit her
+brows. “I guess it takes experience, and seein’ things,” she muttered.
+Her eyes travelled to the little bed in one corner. It would have
+looked like a nun’s, so narrow and inconspicuous was it, had it not
+been for its cover of pale pink satin under the same filmy lace.
+“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you sleep with your husband?”
+Ora was angry to feel herself coloring. She answered haughtily, “We
+have separate rooms. It is the custom--I mean--I have always seen----”
+“I’ve heard it was the stunt among swells, but I don’t hold to it. It’s
+only at night that you’ve really got a chance to know where a man is;
+and the more rope you give him the more he’ll take. What’s to prevent
+Mark slippin’ out when he thinks you’re asleep? Or coming home any old
+time? Besides, some men talk in their sleep. That gives you another
+hold. I’m always hoping Greg will, as he talks so little when he’s
+awake. You bet your life he never gets a room to himself.”
+“Poor Mr. Compton!” thought Ora. “I fancy he’ll expiate.” “Shall we go
+downstairs?” she asked. “I got my portfolios out this morning.”
+She tactfully had shown Ida her wardrobe first, and the guest descended
+to the library in high good humour. For an hour they hung over the
+contents of the Italian portfolios. Ida was enchanted with the castles
+and ruins, listened eagerly to the legends, and was proud of her
+own knowledge of the horrors enacted in the Coliseum. But over the
+photographs of the masterpieces in the Pitti and the Uffizi she frankly
+yawned.
+“No more cross-eyed saints, and fat babies and shameless sporting women
+in mine,” she announced. “Them virgins sitting on thrones, holding
+four-year-olds trying to look like six months, make me tired.”
+“Oh, well, I fancy you must see the old masters for the first time in
+their proper setting--and wonderful colouring----” Ora wondered if the
+masterpieces would appear somewhat overrated to herself if seen for the
+first time in Butte. It certainly was interesting to watch the effect
+of fixed standards--or superstitions--upon an untrained but remarkably
+sharp mind.
+“That Last Supper looks like they’d been eating the paint,” pursued Ida.
+Ora laughed. “I shan’t show you any more pictures today. This furniture
+is Italian--Florentine and Venetian. Let me tell you something about
+it.”
+“I’d like to see all your rooms.” Ida rose and stretched herself
+luxuriously. Ora thought she looked like a beautiful Persian cat.
+“Houses interest me mor’n pictures, although I’ll buy them too some
+day. Not old masters, though. They’d give me the willys. This carved
+oak with faded gilt panels is a dream!” she exclaimed with instant
+appreciation. “I’d learn wood-carving if there was anyone in this
+God-forsaken camp to teach it.”
+Ora clapped her hands, and once more, to Ida’s startled eyes she looked
+like a very young girl. “I studied several of the crafts when I was in
+Germany,” she cried, “wood-carving, brass-hammering, enamelling. I’ll
+set up a workshop--let me see, the attic would be the best place, and
+the furnace warms it--and teach you, and work myself. It’s just what I
+need. I wonder I never thought of it----”
+“Need what?” interrupted Ida sharply.
+“Oh, a relief from too much study. There’s nothing like a craft for
+mental workers--I should have thought of it before,” she repeated.
+“What do you say?”
+“I’d like it first rate, and I guess you’ll find me quick enough with
+my hands, whatever you think of my cocoanut.”
+“I think very highly of your cocoanut. This is my little drawing-room.”
+Ida stood on the threshold for a few moments without comment. She
+had never cast a thought to her Puritan inheritance, but anger,
+disapproval, possessed her. She hated the room, but had no reason to
+give.
+“You don’t like my favourite room?” asked Ora, who was watching her
+curiously.
+“Is it your favourite room?” She turned this over. “No, I guess I like
+the heavy, solid, durable things best.” She struggled for her reasons.
+“You get your money’s worth in them. This looks like the first Chinook
+would blow it clear over into North Dakota, or as if you might come
+in some morning and find a heap of dust where it had been the night
+before--like a corpse when the air’s let in. I didn’t mind your bedroom
+being dainty and looking like some sea shells I saw once in a picture
+frame,--it looks all of a piece, too, you might say; but this--with
+them queer thin faded out chairs and sofas--the colours on the wood
+even, and them pictures over the doors and mantel look like they would
+do the final disappearing act while you wait--well, there’s something
+kinder mysterious--ghostly--it looks so stiff--and--at the same
+time--so kinder immoral----”
+“I wonder if what you are groping for is the atmosphere of the past,
+which all old furniture must have, particularly if rearranged in
+something like its original setting.” Ora was regarding her with a new
+interest. “This furniture came out of a _hôtel_--what we would call a
+residence--with a history--several histories, I should think--and I
+fancy it was all frivolous, and wicked, and exciting----”
+“I ain’t no spiritualist!” said Ida tartly. “Is that what you’re
+driving at?”
+“I don’t know that I was thinking of occultism, even,” said Ora
+lightly. “But it is interesting to find these old things have
+atmosphere for you as well as for me----”
+“Why is it your favourite room? Because it has ‘atmosphere’?”
+“I don’t know. I doubt if I have ever given the matter a thought.”
+“So this is your favourite room.” Ida turned her back on it. “H’m.
+Well, maybe I’ll understand some things better one of these days than
+I do now. Perhaps,” with one of her uncanny dashes of intuition, “I’ll
+understand it when I do you.”
+“Let us go up to the attic and look it over. I’ll have the table and
+benches made tomorrow.” Something was moving toward expression in her
+own mind, but she flung it aside and ran up the stair followed by Ida,
+who dismissed the subject as promptly.
+XII
+There had been a good deal of haggling over the lease of the Oro Fino
+Primo mine, the engineers demanding a three years’ lease and bond,
+proposing to purchase it at the end of that period for fifty thousand
+dollars. Nor were they willing to pay more than ten per cent. in
+royalty, displaying the assay report on the ore and arguing that after
+the necessary outlay on development work, the ore body might be too
+small to repay them.
+Mark, however, was determined not to close with them until he had
+visited the claim with Gregory Compton, and this proved to be
+impossible for several weeks. The engineers, unable to proceed, had
+dismissed their men. They threatened to withdraw their offer and look
+for another abandoned property. Mark told them to go ahead, and they
+remained in Butte.
+In the course of a month Mark and Gregory were both free on a Sunday.
+They took a train for Pony, hired a rig and drove over to the Stratton
+claim, dignified by the name of mine.
+The claim was on a small tableland between Gregory’s own hill, which
+terminated just beyond the borders of his ranch, and another slope
+covered with pines and firs. The engineers had put up a windlass,
+retimbered the shaft, sunk it twenty feet lower, and added a pile of
+dirty looking ore to the original half-obliterated heap about the
+collar of the shaft.
+Gregory picked up half a dozen pieces of various sizes and examined
+them. “Their assay was about right, I should think,” he said. “Looks
+like good low grade ore, but not too good. It will do no harm to assay
+it myself, however,” and he dropped the sample into the pocket of
+his coat. Suddenly he gave a startled exclamation, and Mark saw his
+nostrils dilate, his nose almost point, as he darted forward and kicked
+aside a heap of loosely piled quartz. Then he knelt down and lifted
+out several lumps of greyish-black ore.
+“What is it?” asked Mark curiously, and feeling something of the
+excitement of the hunter whose gun is trained on a bear. “D’you mean
+they’ve found copper glance?”
+“At a depth of sixty feet? Not exactly. This is a basic igneous rock
+called pyroxenite, that may not be rich in gold but is more than likely
+to be--particularly as our friends have hidden it so carefully and said
+nothing about it. It may assay anywhere from ten dollars a ton to five
+hundred. I’m going down.”
+The shaft was inclined, four by eight, and timbered with lagging.
+Gregory lit the candle he had brought and descended the ladder. He
+remained below about ten minutes; when he returned to the surface he
+was excited and triumphant.
+“They’ve begun to drift on the vein,” he announced. “They’ve gone about
+three feet--it must have been then they learned the history of the
+claim. It’s pyroxenite all right, every inch of it.”
+“Well, damn them!” said Mark.
+“They can’t plead that they didn’t recognise the ore, uncommon as it
+is, because they began to drift the moment they struck the vein. It
+dips toward the ranch,” he added abruptly.
+Mark whistled. “It’s pretty close. That would be a kettle of fish--if
+it apexed on your land! Lawsuit. Friendship of a lifetime broken. The
+beautiful Mrs. Mark Blake brings suit against the now famous Gregory
+Compton----”
+“Oh, nonsense!” said Gregory shortly. But he was disturbed nevertheless.
+“But there’s no nonsense in the idea that your own ore bodies may be
+just over the border. Why don’t you sink a shaft, just for nuts.”
+Gregory, who was still excited, felt an impulse to confide his
+discovery to his friend. But his natural secretiveness overcame him and
+he turned abruptly away. “When I have finished at the School,” he said,
+“no doubt I’ll begin gophering again, but not before. What are you
+going to do about this? Let them have it?”
+“I’ll let them have a piece of my mind first. What do you
+advise?--that I work the mine, myself? I could easily form a company if
+the ore is as rich as you think.”
+“I wouldn’t take the chances. Lease the claim to them for a year.
+They’ll take it for that time with all this ore in sight. If they’ve
+hit a large chamber they’ll soon be netting several thousand dollars a
+day. If it’s only a pocket, let them find it out. At the end of a year
+you’ll know a good deal more about the mine than you do now. But keep
+an eye on them so that they don’t gouge, and make them pay you twenty
+per cent. royalty.”
+“They’ll pay it through the nose,” said Mark emphatically.
+Gregory laughed. “You feel as virtuously indignant as if you had never
+tried to do anybody yourself. It’s do or be done out West as well as
+back East, and precious few mines have a clean history. Marcus Daly
+never would have got the best part of Butte Hill if he hadn’t kept his
+mouth shut.”
+“It isn’t that I’m so virtuous,” said Mark ingenuously, “but I don’t
+like the idea that anybody so nearly got the best of me. And just look
+at the way they covered it up.”
+Gregory had kicked aside the greater part of a pile of grey ore, and
+revealed quite a hillock of the pyroxenite. He put several pieces in
+his pocket, discarding the first specimens. “I’ll get to work on this
+tonight,” he said, “and let you know first thing in the morning. But
+I’m willing to wager that it runs from sixty to a hundred dollars a
+ton.”
+“And not a fleck of gold to be seen!” Mark, who, like all intelligent
+men of mining localities, had some knowledge of ores, examined the dark
+rock attentively. “They’re some geologists,” he added with unwilling
+admiration. “This would fool any ordinary mining engineer. Say!” he
+cried, “I’ll not tell Ora until she’s ready to leave--she’s figuring on
+going to Europe in the fall. It will be the surprise of her life, for
+I led her to think she’d get only a hundred or so a month. Don’t say a
+word about it to Ida.”
+Gregory turned away to hide a curl of his lip. “I suppose we’d better
+go over and see Oakley, as we’re so close,” he said. “He’ll probably
+talk for an hour on his hobby, but any knowledge comes in useful to a
+lawyer.”
+“What’s he done.”
+“He figured out that Iowa and the Dakotas and Kansas were likely to
+have a drought next year, so he will sow about five hundred acres with
+flax in May. He has already put in about three hundred acres of winter
+wheat. The bottoms are reserved for alfalfa. He raises the capital and
+gets half profits. If it turns out as he expects he’ll have something
+at the end of a year to live on besides enthusiasm for intensive
+farming.”
+       *       *       *       *       *
+They were driving toward Pony two hours later when Gregory said
+abruptly, “I’m glad that your wife and mine have taken to each other.
+It is a great thing for Ida. The improvement is wonderful.” He forebore
+to add, even to the man who had known his wife since childhood, “I
+don’t see what Mrs. Blake gets out it,” but possibly the irrepressible
+thought flew into Mark’s mind, for he replied promptly:
+“It’s great for Ora. She’s tired of everybody else here; tired of so
+much reading too. I’ve seen that for some time, though I haven’t let
+on. A new interest was just what she wanted. Every clever woman has
+a touch of the school ma’am in her, and no one can deny that Ida’s
+refreshing. To Ora she’s almost a novelty. I think she rather hates to
+make her over, but she’s working on her as hard as I work on a case.
+Ora’s the thorough sort. What she does is done with all her might and
+main. Otherwise she don’t do it at all. She’s equally accomplished at
+that!”
+He decided that this was the propitious moment; Gregory was in an
+uncommonly melting mood, for him. “Say!” he continued, “Ora and I have
+put up a little job on you. I’ve told her to take her new money and go
+to Europe for six months or so--By James, she shall go, even if this
+thing hangs fire and I have to sell some stock. It’s over six years
+since she’s seen Europe, and I guess she pines for it all right. Well,
+she wants to take Ida.”
+Gregory demanded with unexpected promptness, “How much would it cost?”
+“Oh, about a hundred to New York and a hundred and fifty over,” said
+Mark vaguely. “Of course when two are together it costs less. And in
+Europe distances are short. Ora says she shall go to _pensions_ instead
+of hotels, if only because they would be two young women alone; and
+they cost much less. They can also travel second-class, and third in
+Germany and Switzerland. Ora says she and her friends always did it in
+summer because it was cooler and more interesting. She’s sent for a lot
+of Baedekers, is going to make a close estimate, then double it.”
+“One of my aunts died the other day and left me a thousand dollars; she
+had no family. Ida can have it. Of course I could send her more if she
+needed it, but she’s clever with money.”
+“That will do it.” (He knew that if it did not Ora, who would pay the
+bills, would manage to hoodwink Ida.) “And you must live with me. It’ll
+be fine. Bachelor’s Hall. We’ll do as we damn please.”
+Gregory shook hands with him, his strong hard face illuminated with
+the infrequent smile that gave it something of a sweet woman’s charm.
+“Thanks, old man,” he said fervently. “Sounds good!”
+XIII
+Several weeks passed before Ora sent for Miss Ruby Miller. She was
+busier during those weeks than she had been for many months. Ida came
+every other day at one o’clock and remained until five. They carved
+wood in the attic, and looked at pictures or read in the library during
+the hour and a half that included tea. Ida confessed that during the
+latter interval she was so bored sometimes she could scream, but added
+that she would stick it out if she yawned every tooth in her head
+loose. One thing that never bored her was the picture of Ora--her
+working blouse changed for a dainty house gown--presiding at the
+tea-table. She studied every detail, every gesture; she even cultivated
+a taste for tea, which heretofore she had regarded as fit for invalids
+only, like jellies and cup-custard.
+Ora’s alternate days and many of her evenings were filled with social
+duties. Butte was indulging in one of its hurricanes of festivity.
+Mrs. O’Hagan, who lived in the largest and finest house on the West
+Side, gave a series of dinner dances. Mrs. Burke, who owned the big
+ugly red house of appalling architecture built by Judge Stratton in the
+eighties, gave several entertainments in honour of two young visitors
+from Denver. Mrs. Maginnis, who lived in another palatial residence
+far west and far from the old Stratton house--which in its day had
+expressed the extreme limit of the city, as of fashion--gave a ball as
+brilliant as anything Ora had seen in a distant hemisphere. Flowers
+may be scarce in Butte, but flowers and palms may be imported by the
+carload from Helena, and the large rooms looked like an oasis in the
+grey desert of Butte. Every woman wore a ball gown made by some one of
+the great reiterative masters, and there were no wall flowers; for,
+although the tango had not yet set the whole world dancing, the women
+of Montana never had interpreted grey hairs as a signal to retire.
+It was on the day after this ball that Ora had telephoned to Miss
+Miller. “Can you give me an hour or two tomorrow?” she asked.
+“Sure. Can I come early? I’ve got fourteen heads to dress for the
+Cameron ball, and most of them want a facial too?”
+“A what?”
+“Face massage, and touchin’ up generally.”
+“Oh.”
+“It’s fine. Makes you feel as good as you look. What did you want me to
+do?”
+“Ob, shampoo my hair. I want to consult you about it, too--and
+manicure.”
+“Well, I’ll bring the creams along, and if you want a massage I’ll be
+ready.”
+Ora had succeeded in making Miss Miller propose what she had quite made
+up her mind to try, and she rang off with a smile. The evening before
+she had thought herself the plainest woman at the party, and the effect
+of this discouraging conclusion had been to kill her animation and
+sag her shoulders until she knew she must look as dowdy as she felt.
+For the first time she realised how a blighted vanity may demoralise
+the proudest intellect. It was time to get a move on, as her new but
+rapidly developing friend would put it.
+Ora was very proud of her work. She gave Professor Whalen due credit,
+and knew that Ida toiled at her exercises, but doubted if the
+uninspiring pedant would have been retained had it not been for the
+sense of emulation, slightly tinctured by jealousy, she managed to
+rouse in her new boon companion when they were together. But Ida was
+now exercising something of her latent force of character, determined
+to make the most of advantages for which she knew many a sudden-rich
+woman would “give her eye teeth.” She would polish up “good and plenty”
+before her husband made his strike; and waste no precious time on the
+inside of her skull when she had the cash to spend on its outside.
+After the first week she dropped no more g’s, her grammar rapidly
+improved, and although she never would be a stylist, nor altogether
+forswear slang, not only because the ready-made phrase appealed to her
+unliterary mind, but because its use was ingrained, she reserved it
+more and more for those that best could appreciate it. As it annoyed
+Professor Whalen excessively, she went afield for new phrases “for the
+fun of seeing him wriggle.”
+On the other hand, whenever she felt in the mood, she gazed at him with
+penitent languid eyes, promised never to use slang again, and amused
+herself racking other nerves. She knew just how far to go and “turned
+him off,” or “switched him back on to the track” before any real harm
+was done. Some day she might let him make a scene just for the fun of
+the thing, but not until she was “good and ready.”
+Her feeling for Ora was more difficult to define. Sometimes she almost
+loved her, not only inspired by gratitude, but because Ora’s personal
+magnetism was intensified by every charm of refinement, vivacity,
+mental development, as well as by a broad outlook on life and a
+sweetness of manner which never infuriated her by becoming consciously
+gracious. At other times she hated her, for she knew that no such
+combination ever could be hers. Ora was a patrician born of patricians.
+She might go to the devil, preside over one of the resorts down on
+The Flat, take to drink and every evil way, and still would she be
+patrician. Herself might step into millions and carry her unsullied
+virtue to her grave and she never would be the “real thing.” For the
+first time she understood that being “a lady” had little to do with
+morals or behaviour. Nothing irritates the complacent American more
+than the sudden appreciation of this fact.
+“But I guess I’ll be as good as some others,” Ida consoled herself.
+“After all, I don’t see so many Ora Blakes lying round loose. People
+don’t bother much these days if your clothes make their mouth water and
+your grammar don’t queer you.”
+Gregory, when he had time to think about it--he read even at the
+breakfast and dinner-table, and had an assay plant in the cellar--was
+charmed with her improvement, and told her abruptly one day that if
+she kept faithfully to her tasks until November he would give her the
+thousand dollars he had received under the will of his aunt. “And you
+can do what you like with it,” he added. “I shan’t ask you. That’s the
+way I enjoyed money when I was a kid, and I guess women are much the
+same.”
+“A thousand dollars!” Ida was rigid, her mouth open. “Geewhil--I beg
+pardon--My! But you are good!” She paused to rearrange her thoughts,
+which were in danger of flying off into language her husband was paying
+to remodel. “Can I really do anything with it I like?”
+“You can.” He smiled at her bright wide-open eyes and flaming cheeks.
+“I ain’t--haven’t said anything about it as I didn’t think it would be
+any sort of use, but Ora is going to Europe in the fall, and she told
+me Mark was going to try to persuade you to let me go with her. Now I
+can go on my thousand dollars, if you don’t mind. Mark wants you to
+stay with him.”
+“He spoke to me about it--I had forgotten. There couldn’t be a better
+arrangement. This is the time for you to go to Europe--while your mind
+is still plastic.”
+“You don’t seem to mind my going a little bit.” Rapture gave place to
+suspicion. Ida was not born with faith in man.
+“My dear child! What good am I to you now? You might be keeping house
+for a deaf mute. All I need is the right kind of food and a comfortable
+bed. I’ll get both at Mark’s. Next year you would see even less of
+me than you do now. We get our last and most practical drilling in
+ore-dressing, metallurgy, power-utilisation, and geology. We shall
+be off half the time on geological expeditions, visits to mines in
+other parts of the state, smelters, the most up-to-date of the cyanide
+mills. So you see how much I shall be at home. Go to Europe and enjoy
+yourself.”
+“All right. I’ll go. You bet. And I’ll not miss a trick. There’ll never
+be a thousand dollars better spent.”
+XIV
+“Now I’ve got you where I want you, and I’m goin’ to talk--goin’ to say
+something I’ve been dyin’ to say for two or three years.”
+Ora’s head was in the wash-basin. Miss Miller was leisurely spraying
+out the lime juice with which she had drenched her hair. Ora gasped,
+then gurgled something unintelligible, which Miss Ruby interpreted
+as encouragement to proceed. Mrs. Blake’s manner ever since the
+hairdresser’s arrival had been uncommonly winning, with something
+half-appealing, half-confiding that flew straight not only to that
+experienced young woman’s sympathies but to her professional instinct.
+“It’s this,” she continued. “You need a thorough overhauling. In these
+days, particularly in this altitude, women take care of themselves as
+they go along, but you don’t. You’ve lost your complexion ridin’ and
+walkin’ for hours without a veil, sometimes without a hat, and you with
+a delicate skin like a baby’s and not even using creams. I heard a man
+say only last Sunday--I was givin’ his wife a facial and he was sittin’
+round--that it was an awful pity you had gone off so, as you were the
+prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on when you came back after your pa’s
+death, and if Mark--Mr. Blake--hadn’t snapped you up before any other
+young man got a look at you you’d have had a dozen chances, for all
+you’ve got such a reputation for brains. ‘A man can stand brains in a
+white lily of a girl,’ says he, ‘but when she gets older she’s either
+got to keep her complexion or cut out the brains, and Ora Blake’s done
+neither’--Say if you squirm like that you’ll get your mouth and eyes
+full of lemon. His wife said she didn’t believe men cared for them thin
+white women anyway--she’s bustin’ with health herself--and he gave a
+grunt that means a lot to a girl who knows men like I do. You never did
+make anything of yourself and you’ve let yourself go these last two or
+three years something shameful. If you’d take yourself in hand, get on
+to yourself once for all, you’d have people twistin’ their necks off to
+look at you and callin’ you a Mariposa lily, or a Princess Pine, or a
+White Gladiolus and other poetry names like that. And you could get the
+reputation of a beauty all right. It makes me sick.”
+“Could you make me into a beauty?” Ora’s voice was remarkably languid
+considering the flaming hue of her face, which, however, may have been
+due to its prolonged sojourn in the wash-basin. Miss Miller had wrung
+her hair out and was rubbing it vigorously.
+“Couldn’t I _just_?”
+As Mrs. Blake maintained a dignified silence, Miss Ruby proceeded to
+develop her theme. “Now, your hair, for instance. That’s the reason
+I used lemon today. You’ve been usin’ soap, and, what with this dry
+climate, and no care, it’s as harsh and broken as if you’d been usin’
+soda on it every day. It’s lemon and hot water for you, first, last
+and always, and eggs after a journey. It needs a couple of months of
+hand-massage every other day right now; after that it will be up to
+you. Brush it night and morning and use a tonic twice a year.”
+She paused and Ora waited with eyes closed to conceal her impatience.
+Finally she opened them irresistibly and met Miss Ruby’s in the mirror.
+They, too, looked embarrassed. Ora’s smile was spontaneous and sweet
+and not too frequent. It seldom failed to melt reserve and inspire
+confidence. She played this card without delay.
+“Why don’t you go on?” she asked. “All that is most interesting and
+valuable. I shall remember every word of it.”
+“Well--I was afraid that what I want to say most might sound as if I
+was drummin’ up trade, and the Lord knows I’ve got more to do than I
+could manage if there was ten days in every week. I turned down two
+ladies today to come here. I never shampoo the day of a ball.”
+“My dear Miss Miller! You are an artist, and like all artists, you
+not only aim at perfection yourself but your eyes and fingers ache
+at imperfection. I suppose an author rewrites sentences as he reads
+them, and painters must long to repaint every picture they see. As
+for you--we are your page and canvas, and naturally we have the good
+fortune to interest you.”
+“That’s it!” cried Miss Ruby, glowing. “That’s the size of it, only I
+couldn’t ever say it like that. Well, now, if you want this skin to
+look like a complexion and not like a hide, I’ve got to give you a
+massage every third day for quite a while. It not only needs creams and
+cold applications--hot only once in a while--but an awful lot of hand
+massage. It’s all run down and needs stimulating the worst way. Another
+year and you’d be havin’ lines. You can’t leave yourself to nature up
+here. She’s in too great a hurry to take back what she gave. And you
+must cut out hot breads and trash and wear a veil when you go out in
+the sun and wind. And you go to Boulder Springs once a week and take a
+vapour bath.”
+“But I’ll always look washed-out.”
+“Not if you look fresh, and wear colours that suit you.”
+“And I never was called a beauty. That man, whoever he was, merely
+remembered the usual prettiness of youth. Every young girl is pretty
+unless she is ugly.”
+“Well, I guess you didn’t take enough pains to make people think you
+were a beauty. Some--Ida Compton, for instance--don’t need to do
+anything but just show themselves. Any fool--particularly a man--can
+see black hair and red and white skin, and meltin’ eyes, and lashes
+a yard long, and a dashin’ figure. But odd and refined types like
+you--well, you’ve got to help it out.”
+“How very interesting! Do you mean I must go about telling people
+that I am really beautiful, if they will only look at me long enough?
+Or--possibly--do you mean that I should make up?”
+“I don’t mean either, ’though in a way I mean both. In the first place
+you’ve got to make the most of your points. You’re not a red blonde
+or a gold blonde, but what the French call sendray; in plain English,
+you’ve got ash-coloured hair. Now, that makes the blondest kind of
+blonde, but at the same time it’s not so common, and nature has to give
+it to you. Art can’t. What you want to do is to let people see that
+your colouring is so rare that you can’t get enough of it yourself,
+and by and by people will think they can’t either. You’ve been wearin’
+all this hair twisted into a hard knot down on your neck. That don’t
+show off the hair and don’t suit your face, which is kinder square. I’m
+goin’ to pull it soft about your face and ears and then coil it softly
+on top of your head. That’ll give length to your face, and look as if
+you was proud of your hair--which you will be in a month or two. You
+mustn’t pay too much attention to the style of the moment. You’re the
+sort to have a style of your own and stick to it.”
+“I’m in your hands,” murmured Ora. “What next?”
+“Did you really lose interest in yourself?” asked Miss Miller
+curiously, and with the fine freedom of the West from class restraint.
+“Or didn’t you ever have any?”
+“A little of both. When I was a girl I was a frightful pedant--and--Oh,
+well--Butte is not Europe, and I took refuge more than ever in books,
+particularly as I could have nothing of the other arts. You know the
+resources of Butte!”
+“I’m glad you’re goin’ to Europe again, where I guess all kinds of
+variety are on tap.--Say, perhaps you’ll find out all the new kinks for
+the complexion in Paris, and tell me when you come back.”
+“I will indeed!”
+“I don’t hold to rippin’ the skin off, or hoistin’ it up,” said Miss
+Miller firmly. “All any skin needs is steady treatment, and constant
+care--constant, mind you, and never forget it. Now there’s your
+profile. It’s grand. The way I’m goin’ to fix your hair’ll show it off,
+and don’t you let it get scooped round the eyes, like so many women do.
+Massage’ll prevent that. I wish your eyebrows and lashes was black,
+like so many heroines in novels has. The contrast would be fine. But
+brown’ll do, and I guess the natural is your lay. Luckily them black
+grey eyes is a high note, and when you get your lips real red, you’ll
+have all the colour your style can carry. The gleamin’ white skin’ll do
+the rest.”
+“How am I to get red lips, and what’s to make my skin gleam?”
+“You’re anæmic. You go to a doctor and get a tonic right off. When I
+get through with your complexion it’ll gleam all right. No powder for
+you. It improves most women, but you want high lights. I don’t mean
+shine when I say gleam, either. I mean that you’ve got the kind of skin
+that when the tan’s off and it’s toned up and is in perfect condition
+(you’ve got to be that inside, too), sheds a sort of white light. It’s
+the rarest kind, and I guess it does the most damage.”
+“And what good is all this beautifying to do me? And why make me
+dangerous? Surely you are not counselling that I begin a predatory raid
+on other women’s husbands, or even on the ‘brownies’?”
+“Well, I guess not. I don’t approve of married women lettin’ men make
+love to them, but I do believe in a woman makin’ the most of herself
+and gettin’ all the admiration that’s comin’ to her. If you can be a
+beauty, for the Lord Almighty’s sake be one. Believe me, it’ll make
+life seem as if it had a lot more to it.”
+“I shouldn’t wonder!”
+“And you go in right off for deep breathin’ and Swedish exercises
+night and mornin’. It’s the style to be thin, but you want to develop
+yourself more. And they keep you limber--don’t forget that. When a
+woman stiffens up she’s done for. Might as well get fat round her
+waist. Now shut your eyes, I’m goin’ to massage.”
+XV
+“I wonder!” thought Ora, “I wonder!”
+It was some four months after her first séance with Miss Ruby Miller.
+There was no question of the improvement in her looks, owing, perhaps,
+as much to a new self-confidence as to the becoming arrangement of
+her hair and the improved tint and texture of her skin. The tonic and
+a less reckless diet had also done their work; her eyes were even
+brighter, her lips pink. Moreover, it was patent that the sudden
+reformation was as obvious to Butte as to herself. Women confessed to a
+previous fear that the “altitude had got on her nerves or something”;
+as for the men, they may or may not have observed the more direct
+results of Miss Miller’s manipulations, but it was not open to doubt
+that her new interest in herself had revived her magnetism and possibly
+doubled it.
+Ora turned from the mirror in her bedroom, where she had been regarding
+her convalescing beauty with a puzzled frown, and stared down at the
+rough red dirt of her half-finished street--she lived far to the west.
+Her eyes travelled up to the rough elevation upon which stood the
+School of Mines in its lonely splendour, then down to the rough and
+dreary Flat. It stretched far to the south, a hideous expanse, with its
+dusty cemetery, its uninviting but not neglected road houses, its wide
+section given over to humble dwellings, with here and there a house of
+more pretensions, but little more beauty. It was in one of these last,
+no doubt, that her father had kept his mistress, whose children, she
+was vaguely aware, attended the public schools under his name. These
+houses, large and small, were crowded together as if pathetically
+conscious that the human element must be their all, in that sandy,
+treeless, greenless waste.
+There was something pathetic, altogether, thought Ora, in the bright
+eagerness with which even the wealthy class made the most of their
+little all. They were so proud of Columbia Gardens, a happy-go-lucky
+jumble of architectures and a few young trees, a fine conservatory and
+obese pansies on green checkers of lawn; they patronised its Casino so
+conscientiously on Friday nights when the weather would permit. During
+the winter, they skated on their shingled puddle down on The Flat as
+merrily and thankfully as though it were the West End of London or
+one of the beautiful lakes in one of the beautiful German “gartens.”
+They motored about the hideous environs, and hung out of the car to
+emphasise their rapture at the lonely tree or patch of timid verdure;
+they entertained royally in their little Club House, out in another
+desolate waste, or played golf without envy or malice. In short they
+resolutely made the most of Butte when they were in it; they patted
+Butte and themselves on the back daily; they loved it and they were
+loyal to it and they got out of it as often as they possibly could.
+“And I!” thought Ora, with a sense of panic. “I, who will probably get
+away every five years or so--what am I waking up for--to what end? I
+wonder!”
+She walked slowly downstairs and, avoiding the little French
+drawing-room, went into the library and sat down among her books.
+Sash curtains of a pale canary colour shut out the rough vacant lots
+and ugly dwellings above her home, and cast a mellow glow over the
+brown walls and rows of calf-bound books. Judge Stratton had read
+in four modern languages and two dead ones. The love of reading, of
+long evenings alone in his deserted “mansion,” had been as striking
+a characteristic of his many-sided ego as his contempt for moral
+standards. Ora, who had grown into a slow but fairly thorough knowledge
+of her father’s life and character, permitted her thoughts to flow
+freely this afternoon and to speculate upon what her life might have
+been had Judge Stratton been as upright as he was intellectually
+gifted; if her mother had possessed the brains or charm to keep him
+ensnared; if she herself had been left, an orphan at twenty, with the
+fortune she inevitably would have inherited had her father behaved
+himself--instead of finding herself penniless, ignorant of all
+practical knowledge, a querulous invalid on her hands, her only suitor
+the “hustling” son of her mother’s old seamstress.
+Ora admitted no disloyalty to Mark as she put these questions for
+the first time squarely to herself. She intended to continue to treat
+him with unswerving friendship, to give him all the assistance in her
+power, as long as she lived. And, as husbands went, she made no doubt
+that he was one to thank her grudging providence for. But that she
+would have considered him for a moment had she inherited the fortune
+her father had made and dissipated was as likely as that she would have
+elected to live her life in Butte.
+She knew Mark’s ambitions. Washington was his goal, and he was by no
+means averse from being governor of his state meanwhile. Nor would he
+have been a genuine American boy, born in the traditional log cabin--it
+had been a log cabin as a matter of fact--if he had not cherished
+secret designs on the White House. In all this, did it prove to be more
+or less, she could be of incalculable assistance to him. And she was
+the more determined to render this assistance because she had accepted
+his bounty and was unable to love him.
+She concluded with some cynicism that the account would be squared,
+being by no means blind to what she had done for him already in the
+way of social position and prestige; still, it was not only his right,
+but a penance demanded by her self-respect. She was living the most
+unidealistic life possible to a woman of her pride and temperament, but
+she would redeem it as far as lay in her power.
+She moved impatiently, her brows puzzled again, and something like
+fear in her heart. What did this slow awakening portend? Why had she
+instinctively held it back with all her strength, quite successfully
+until her new-born vanity, with its infinite suggestions, had quickened
+it suddenly into imperious expression?
+Certainly she was conscious of no desire for a more idealistic union
+with another man. If she had inherited a fortune, she would have
+married no one; not then, at all events; nothing had been further from
+her desire. She would have lived in Europe and travelled in many lands.
+Beyond a doubt her hunger for the knowledge that lies in books would
+have been satiated long since, never would have assumed a discrepant
+importance. She would be uniformly developed, and she would have met
+many men. With the double passport of birth and wealth, added to the
+fine manner she owed to her Southern mother, her natural vivacity and
+magnetism, and a physical endowment that she now knew could have been
+trained into positive beauty, she would have had her pick of men. And
+when a woman may choose of the best, with ample time at her disposal,
+it was incredible that the true mate, the essential companion, should
+not be found before it was too late. Most marriages are makeshifts; but
+for the fortunate few, with the intelligence to wait, and the developed
+instinct to respond, there was always the possibility of the perfect
+union.
+Ora made a wry face at this last collocation. She had no yearning for
+the “perfect union.” Matrimony had been too unutterably distasteful.
+She turned hastily from the subject and recalled her father’s
+impassioned desire that she should make the West her home, her career,
+marry a Western man, give him and her state the benefit of her
+endowments and accomplishments. Possibly, surfeited with Europe, she
+would have returned to Montana to identify herself with its progress,
+whether she married or not. She was artistic by temperament and
+training, and correspondingly fastidious; she cordially detested all
+careers pursued by women outside those that were the natural evolution
+of an artistic gift. But she could have built herself an immense and
+splendid house, filled it with the most exquisite treasures American
+money could coax from the needy aristocracy of Europe, and have a
+famous salon; invite the pick of the artistic, literary, musical,
+and political world to visit her for weeks or months at a time,
+house parties of a hundred or more, and so make her state famous for
+something besides metals, intensive farming, and political corruption.
+No one could deny that the state would benefit exceedingly.
+Conceivably, in time she would take a husband, assuredly one of high
+ambitions and abilities, one whose fortunes probably would take him to
+Washington.
+This brought her back to Mark, and she laughed aloud. She had been
+romancing wildly; of late she had grudgingly admitted that nature may
+have composed her to be romantic after she had recovered from the
+intellectual obsession; and the circle had brought her round to her
+husband! He was “forging ahead” with extraordinary rapidity. She made
+no doubt that he would be a millionaire within the ten years’ limit
+he had set himself. Nor would he rely alone upon his legal equipment
+and the many opportunities to exercise it when a man was “on the job
+all the time”; he watched the development of Montana’s every industry,
+new and established. He “bought in on the ground floor,” gambled
+discreetly in copper, owned shares in several new and promising mines,
+and property on the most picturesquely situated of the new lakes
+constructed for power supply. He invested what he could afford, and
+with the precision of the man on the spot. Yes, he would be one of
+the Western millionaires, even if not one of the inordinate ones, and
+before his ten years had passed, if no untoward event occurred.
+And it was on the cards that she would have her own fortune before
+long. She knew that Mark (who had her power of attorney) had made
+better terms with the engineers than he had anticipated, and he dropped
+mysterious hints which, knowing his level head, made her indulge in
+ornate dreams now and again. But he only smiled teasingly when she
+demanded a full explanation, and told her that she would realise how
+good or how bad her mine was when she went to the bank to sign her
+letter of credit.
+For one thing she felt suddenly grateful. She knew that the mine had
+been leased for a year only and without bond. If, during that time it
+“panned out,” she would stipulate to mine it herself when the contract
+expired.
+She sat up very straight and smiled. That was what she would have
+liked! If her father had but willed her this mine and capital enough to
+work it alone! Her fingers fluttered as they always did when handling
+ore; she had wondered before if the prospector’s fever were in her
+blood. How she should have enjoyed watching the rock come up in the
+buckets as the shaft sank foot by foot, until they struck the vein;
+always expecting chambers of incredible richness, gold, copper, silver.
+She would even learn to do the pleasant part of her own assaying; and
+she suddenly experienced an intense secretive jealous love for this
+mine that was hers and in which might be hidden shining blocks of
+those mysterious primary deposits deep in the sulphide zone; forced up
+through the veins of earth, but born how or where man could only guess.
+It was a mystery that she wanted to feel close to and alone with, far
+in the winding depths of her mine.
+She got up and moved about impatiently. Her propensity to dream
+extravagantly was beginning to alarm her, and she wished uneasily that
+she could discover the gift to write and work it off. Where would
+it lead her? But she would not admit for a moment that her released
+imagination, pulsing with vitality, and working on whatever she fed it,
+only awaited the inevitable moment when it could concentrate on the one
+object for which the imagination of woman was created.
+The pendulum swung back and more evenly. She told herself it was both
+possible and probable that she had a good property, however short it
+might fall of Butte Hill. She renewed her determination to mine it
+herself, and work, work, work. Therein lay safety. The future seemed
+suddenly full of alarms.
+And there was Mark, his career, his demands, dictated not so
+insistently by him as by herself.
+Ora’s soul rose in a sudden and desperate revolt beside which her
+rising aversion from unmitigated intellect was a mere megrim. She
+felt herself to be her father’s daughter in all her newly-opened
+aching brain-cells. He had lived his life to please himself, and if
+his temptations and weaknesses might never be hers--how could she
+tell?--his intense vitality survived in her veins, his imperious
+spirit, his scornful independence. She glanced at the rows of
+calf-bound books he had handled so often. Something of his sinister
+powerful personality seemed to steal forth and encompass her, sweep
+through the quickened corridors of her brain. Mark Blake was not the
+man he would have chosen for his daughter. Western, Mark might be to
+the core, but he was second-rate, and second-rate he would remain no
+matter what his successes.
+And, she wondered, what would this proud ambitious parent, whose
+deepest feeling had been for his one legitimate child, say to her plan
+to play second fiddle for life to a man of the Mark Blake calibre? He
+had wanted her to marry in the West, but he had been equally insistent
+that site should develop a personality and position of her own. No
+devoted suffragist could have been a more ardent advocate of woman’s
+personal development than Judge Stratton had been where his daughter
+was concerned. To the rights of other women he had never cast a
+thought.
+This was the hour of grim self-avowal. She admitted what had long moved
+in the back of her mind, striving toward expression, that she hated
+herself for having married any man for the miserable reason that has
+driven so many lazy inefficient women into loveless marriages. She
+should have gone to work. More than one of her father’s old friends
+would have given her a secretaryship. She could have lived on her
+little capital and taken the four years’ course at the School of Mines,
+equipping herself for a congenial career. If that had not occurred to
+her she could have taught French, Italian, German, dancing, literature.
+In a new state like Montana, with many women raised abruptly from
+the nethermost to the highest stratum, there was always a longing,
+generally unfulfilled, for the quick veneer; and women of older
+fortunes welcomed opportunities to improve themselves. She could have
+taken parties to Europe.
+She had played the coward’s part and not only done a black injustice to
+herself but to Mark Blake. He was naturally an affectionate creature,
+and, married to a comfortable sweet little wife, he would have been
+domestic and quite happy. In spite of his enjoyment of his club, his
+cards and billiards, and his buoyant nature, she suspected that he was
+wistful at heart. He was intensely proud of his wife, in certain ways
+dependent upon her, but she knew he had taken for granted that her
+girlish coldness would melt in time and womanly fires kindle. Well,
+they never would for him, poor Mark. And possessing an inherent sense
+of justice, she felt just then more sympathy for him than for herself,
+and placed all his good points to his credit.
+She was conscious of no sympathy for herself, only of that deep
+sense of puzzlement, disturbance, apprehension. Revolt passed.
+Indications--the abrupt bursting into flower of many unsuspected bulbs
+in her inner garden: softness, sympathy, a more spontaneous interest
+in and response to others, the tendency to dream, vague formless
+aspirations--had hinted, even before she took her new-born vanity to
+Miss Ruby Miller, that she was on the threshold of one of the dangerous
+ages (there are some ten or fifteen of them), and that unless she
+had the doubtful wisdom and resolution to burn out her garden as the
+poisonous fumes of roasting ores had blasted the fruitful soil of
+Butte, she must prepare to face Life, possibly its terrible joys and
+sorrows.
+She sprang to her feet and ran upstairs and dressed for the street. At
+least she had one abiding interest and responsibility, Ida Compton. She
+was a self-imposed and absorbing duty, and always diverting.
+XVI
+“Oh, you give me the willys!”
+“My dear Mrs. Compton! How often have you promised me----”
+“Well, if you will stare at me like a moonstruck setter dog when I’m
+trying to think up ’steen synonyms for one old word without looking
+in the dictionary! I can’t blow up my vocabulary like a paper bag and
+flirt with you at the same time.”
+“I have no desire to flirt with you!” said Professor Whalen with great
+dignity. “It is quite the reverse. You have been playing with my
+feelings for months.”
+“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve been too set on becoming a real lady
+before leaving for Europe--haven’t thought about you.”
+Professor Whalen turned a deep dull red. His overlapping upper teeth
+shot forward as if to snap down upon his long rather weak chin. He
+stared past Ida through the open window. It was May and the snow was
+melting on the mountains, had disappeared from the streets of Butte;
+there is a brief springtime in Montana between the snows of winter and
+the cold rains of June, and today was soft and caressing.
+“I’ll tell you what is the matter with you,” said Ida, cruelly. “It’s
+the spring of the year.”
+Whalen sprang to his feet. For the first time in his anæmic life he was
+furiously angry, and he rejoiced in the sensation. “I wish you were a
+man,” he stuttered. “I’d beat you. It would do my heart good.”
+“If you were a real man you would enjoy beating a woman a long sight
+more,” goaded Ida, who watched him as a man-eating tigress may watch
+the squirming victim between her paws. She had fed her vanity and
+amused herself by playing on the little man’s pale emotions until she
+was convinced he really was in love with her. She suddenly made up her
+mind to force him to “let go,” and experience the sensation of being
+made love to feloniously.
+“I am not a brute,” announced Whalen, still in the same stifled voice.
+His face was purple, but he was conscious of a warning whisper that he
+was in a fair way to lose this remunerative pupil. He dismissed the
+warning. There is probably no man so insignificant, in whom passion for
+the imperative woman does not develop abnormally the purely masculine
+conceit. He may despair in solitude, when devitalised by reaction and
+doubt, but when in her presence, under her inviting eye, and hurried
+to a crisis by hammering pulses and scorching blood, he is merely the
+primitive male with whom to desire is to have.
+Ida laughed, a low throaty husky laugh. “If you were,” she said
+cuttingly, “you might stand a show.”
+“It is you that are brutal,” hissed poor Whalen.
+Ida leaned back in her chair and looked at him out of half-closed eyes.
+“What induced you to fall in love with me, anyhow?” she demanded in her
+sweet lazy voice. Whalen clenched his hands.
+“I am a man if I am not a brute. You are the most fascinating woman on
+earth, and you have deliberately tried to entice me from the path of
+rectitude I have trod all my life----”
+“What’s that?” Ida sat up straight, her brows drawn in an ominous frown.
+“I have resisted you until today, but I yield----”
+“What the devil are you talking about?”
+“I expected to be tormented to the utmost limit. But I have stood all
+of it that I purpose to stand.” His voice by this time was a subdued
+roar. “I don’t care whether you love me or not. I don’t think you
+could love anybody. I have read that sirens never do. But you are an
+enchantress, and you have shown plainly enough----”
+Ida’s frown had relaxed, but her eyes blazed. He misunderstood their
+expression, as well as the sudden forward thrust of her head. He sprang
+forward, caught her by the shoulders and kissed her.
+“Aw!” Ida’s voice was almost a roar. She leaped to her feet, twirled
+him about, caught him by the back of his collar and the seat of
+his trousers, and threw him out of the window as if he had been an
+offensive dog. She flung his hat and stick after him and slammed
+the window down. Then she stamped her feet in inarticulate rage,
+and rubbed and bit her mouth. It was one thing to play with a man’s
+passions and quite another to be defiled by them. Ida seethed with the
+fierce virtue of a young inexperienced and temperamentally cold woman.
+For a few moments she used very bad language indeed, and struggled with
+an impulse to ran after the “little puppy” and whip him in the street.
+But, remembering that she was making a heroic attempt to be a grande
+dame, she finally went into her bedroom and washed her face.
+XVII
+There was a knock on the front door. Ida, smoothing her hair, hastened
+to open it, glad of diversion. Ora stood there. For a moment the girls
+looked hard at each other, then burst into laughter.
+“What’s up?” asked Ida. “You look----”
+“My dear, it is I who should ask? Your face is crimson; you look as if
+you had just given someone a beating, and I met poor little Whalen,
+dusty, dishevelled, growling like a mad dog--he didn’t know me.”
+“Well, I guess he won’t know himself for a while,” said Ida drily,
+leading the way into the parlour. “When he comes to he’ll have his
+work cut out to climb back to his little two-cent pedestal and fit on
+his battered halo.” She related the incident. “What do you know about
+that?” she demanded in conclusion. “Wouldn’t it come and get you?”
+“I am afraid you have made an enemy. It is always best to let them
+down gently, save their pride--and--ah!--it isn’t customary to throw
+gentlemen out of the window!”
+“Gentlemen!” snorted Ida. “He’s no gentleman. He not only kissed
+me with his horrid front teeth, but he insinuated that I was just
+languishing for him, the----” Once more Ida’s feelings overflowed in
+language not intended for print. “It made me so mad I’d have lammed him
+with the umbrella if we’d been in the hall.”
+“Ida,” asked Ora abruptly, “would you have minded so much if he had
+been good-looking and attractive?”
+“Well--perhaps--I guess in that case I’d simply have smacked him and
+let him get out quick by the front door. But I don’t want any man
+touching me. I’m a married woman.”
+“But if you flirt and lead them on----”
+“You said once yourself that American men understood the game and knew
+how to take their medicine.”
+“I also said that they can fall more tiresomely in love than any other
+men. Of course the Whalens don’t count. But do you intend to go on
+making men fall in love with you and throwing them--metaphorically--out
+of the window?”
+“Much chance I’ll get.”
+“You’ll find plenty of chances in Europe. You are a remarkably
+beautiful woman. And Europeans take what we call flirting for shameless
+encouragement.”
+“Well, I guess I’ll be getting experience of the world all right. And
+the Lord knows I’d like to be admired by men who have seen something. I
+can take care of myself, and Greg don’t need to worry.”
+“I’ve no doubt of that. Of course you are awfully fond of Mr. Compton,
+aren’t you?” Ora spoke somewhat wistfully.
+“Oh, yes; fond enough, fonder than a good many wives, I guess, for he’s
+kind and pleasant, and no earthly trouble about the house. But when a
+woman marries she gets a kid right there at the altar, and he’s her
+biggest kid till his false teeth drop out on his death-bed, and his
+great-grandchildren are feeding him through a tube. I don’t want any of
+the other sort of kids, and I guess I’m not what you call the maternal
+woman, but the Lord knows I’m a mother to Greg and a good one. I’d like
+to know what he’d do without me--that’s the only reason I hate leaving.
+He never thinks of changing his shoes when they’re wet, and half the
+time wouldn’t eat anything but his book if I didn’t put the stuff right
+in front of him.”
+“Mark knows him almost as well as you do, and will look after him. My
+maid, who is practically my housekeeper, and an old family servant,
+will also keep a maternal eye on him.”
+“He keeps himself tidy,” conceded Ida handsomely. “Wants clean things
+every day, but never knows where to find them. He’ll wander out into
+the kitchen where I’m cooking breakfast and ask where his socks are,
+and they always in the same drawer.”
+“I fancy you’ve spoiled him.”
+“Not I. I don’t hold with spoiling men. They’re born spoiled anyhow.
+I found Greg walking round in a dream when I married, and a pile of
+socks as high as the door knob he’d thrown away because they’d holes in
+them so tiny you could hardly see them. I darned every one, you bet,
+and he’s wearing them now, though he don’t know it. He’s like that, as
+dainty as a cat, and as helpless as a blind kitten. I am a wife and I
+know my duty,” concluded Ida virtuously.
+“I certainly shall give Custer minute directions. I can’t have you
+worrying.”
+“I’ll not worry, once I’m started. Don’t you fret! But what’s the
+matter with you, Ora? You look kinder excited, and kinder--well,
+harassed. How’s that out of the new pocket dictionary I’ve set up in my
+head?”
+“I’ll soon have to look to my own vocabulary. Oh--I----”
+“Something’s up. Spit it out. It’ll do you good.”
+“Dear Ida! If you must use slang, do confine yourself to that which has
+passed through the mint of polite society. There is an abundance to
+choose from!”
+“Don’t you worry; I won’t disgrace you. But I must let out a tuck
+occasionally when we’re alone. Greg wouldn’t let me go to any of the
+Club dances, and I scarcely ever see Ruby or Pearl, they’re so busy--to
+say nothing of myself!”
+“Very well,” said Ora, laughing. “Let me be your safety valve, by all
+means.”
+“Fire away.”
+“Oh--how am I to tell you--I scarcely know, myself----”
+“I guess you’re waking up. Ruby, who knows human nature like a book----”
+Ora half rose. “Have you been talking me over with Miss Miller?” she
+asked haughtily.
+“Not much. Hardly seen her since we met. But you interest Butte, you
+know. I guess they talk you over good and plenty. It was only a few
+days before you called that the Miller girls visited with me all day,
+and they talked a lot about you. Ruby said that if you’d come to out of
+the sleeping beauty stage, you’d make things hum, and that her fingers
+just itched to get at your skin and hair.”
+“She said that to me once; and I don’t mind telling you that I called
+her in some time ago.”
+“Oh, I’m not a bat. I’ve seen you looking prettier every day, and
+there’s only one way to do it, when you’ve let yourself go. I’ve had
+the benefit of Ruby’s advice for years, and I don’t propose to let
+myself go, not for a minute.”
+“Right you are. And do live your life normally from day to day,
+developing normally. The awakening process, when the Nature that
+made you is no longer content to be a mere footstool for the mind,
+is almost as painful as coming to after drowning. I suddenly have
+become conscious of myself, as it were; I am interested in many more
+things--personal things--I seem to want far more of life than I did a
+few months ago----”
+“In other words, you don’t know where you’re at.”
+Ora laughed merrily. “My present condition could not be stated more
+patly!”
+“Ora, I don’t want to pry into your confidence, and you’re not one to
+give much of that anyhow, but everybody in Butte knows that you’re not
+in love with Mark, and never were, nice as you treat him--only because
+you couldn’t be anything but a lady if you tried. Mrs. O’Neil, one day
+when she was having a massage, told Ruby all about your marriage. She
+said you were the most bewildered young thing she ever saw, and that
+Mark snapped you up before another young man could get a look at you.
+Now, I’ve known Mark all my life--he beaued my sister who died, for a
+year or two, and his mother’s cottage was just up the hill anyhow; and
+although he’s a good chap and a born hustler, and bound to get rich,
+he’s not the sort of man women fall in love with. You wouldn’t have
+fallen in love with him, if he’d been born a millionaire, and travelled
+and got Butte out of his system. And if your father had left you well
+off, you wouldn’t have looked at him. There’s men, bad and good--that’s
+to say, better--that women fall in love with, and there’s men bad and
+good that they don’t, not in a thousand years. Poor old Mark’s a Don’t
+all right. You ain’t angry at my saying all this, but Mark was like my
+own brother for years?”
+“Oh, no, I am not angry. You are far too matter-of-fact. You might be
+discussing different grades of ore!”
+“Well, that’s about it, and the poor ore can’t help itself, any more
+than the slag and gangue can, and Mark’s not either of those, you bet.
+He’s good metal, all right, only he didn’t come out of the Anaconda
+mine--What have you turned so red about? My! But you do blush easy!”
+“It’s this--do you despise me--do you think I did wrong--Oh, I mean I
+have quite suddenly realised that I never should have married any man
+for so contemptible a reason. I should have gone to work----”
+“Work? You?”
+“Why not? Many a delicately nurtured woman has earned her bread.”
+“The more fool she if she could get a man to earn it for her. That’s
+what they’re for. The Lord knows they pride themselves on the way they
+do it, being the stronger sex, and a lot more words. I guess I’d have
+married before Greg turned up if I’d met a man I was sure was going to
+make something of himself. You did just right to take a good husband
+and take him quick when you found yourself in a hole.”
+“Yes--but----” Her blush deepened. “You see--” Ora never had had an
+intimate confidant. It was doubtful if she ever would have; not, at all
+events, a woman. But Ida, as she herself would have expressed it, could
+always see through a stone wall when there was a crack in it.
+“Oh, shucks!” she said. “Don’t let that worry you. If you don’t feel
+that way first you do last, I guess. Most of us are bored to death,
+but women have stood it for a few thousand years, and I guess they can
+stand it for a few thousand more. We all of us have to pay high for
+anything we want. That’s about the size of it. Forget it.”
+“Thanks, dear, you console me.” Ora smiled with closed eyes, but she
+was thrilled with a sudden inexplicable longing; like other of her
+recent sensations, it puzzled and alarmed her.
+“Ora!” exclaimed Ida suddenly. “There’s one thing that’s just as sure
+as death and taxes; and knowing men and knowing life don’t help women
+one little bit. It’s this: A woman’s got to have her love affair sooner
+or later. If she marries for love she’s pretty safe, for ten or fifteen
+years, anyhow. But if she doesn’t, well, she’ll get it in the neck
+sooner or later--and it’ll be about the time she begins to sit up and
+take notice. She’s a regular magnet then, too. So watch out.”
+Ora opened her eyes. They looked like steel. “I have never given a
+thought to love. There is nothing I want less. I shall continue to
+make Mark as good a wife as I know how to be----”
+“Oh, I’m not saying you’ll go off the hooks, like some I could mention
+in your own bunch, but if the man comes along you’ll fall in love
+all right. Might as well try to stop a waterfall from jumping over
+the rocks. I’m not so dead sure I do know what you’d do. Pride, and
+high breeding, and duty would pull one way, but--well, I guess when
+you marble women get waked up good and plenty, what they call roused,
+you’re the worst kind. A considerable number of other things would pull
+from the opposite direction, and one of them would be the man.”
+“Ida!” said Ora, aghast. “How do you know so much? Your opportunities
+have been very limited.”
+“Oh, have they? Wasn’t I born and brought up in a mining camp? Butte is
+some education, believe me. I ran straight all right, not only because
+the sporting life had no charms for me but because I figured on moving
+over one of these days to Millionaire Gulch. But it wasn’t for want of
+opportunity, and the same opportunities were handed over by men of your
+crowd--or fixin’ to be. Besides, some women are born wise that way, I
+guess, and I’m one of ’em. You’ve been living in a sort of self-made
+heaven all your life, with only books for inhabitants. I could put you
+wise every day in the week.”
+“It is true that although I saw a good deal of life while my mother
+lived so much in the world, and always have been deeply interested
+in the work of the psychological novelists, particularly the
+Europeans--I--well, I never applied it to my--never thought much about
+it until lately. I do not seem to know myself the least little bit.”
+“I guess it’ll be me--Oh, Lord, I--taking you to Europe, not you me.
+I’ll see that you don’t get into mischief, for I’d hate like the
+dickens to have you go to pieces over any man. Not one of them that
+ever lived since Adam is worth it. They’re all right to marry, all
+things being equal, but to sacrifice your life for, nixie. Any style of
+man you are partial to? I’ll keep his sort off with a broom.”
+“I’ve never gone so far as even to think----”
+“Every woman has her style in men,” said Ida firmly. “I heard of a
+woman once who had three husbands and each one had a wart on his nose.”
+“Oh, you are funny! I have heard that a woman falls in love with a
+type, not with the man, and, like all epigrams, that one contains a
+half-truth. I had two or three girlish fancies; one was an Austrian
+officer, another a French nobleman--and not impecunious--he wasn’t
+a fortune hunter. The third was a New Yorker who fell in love with
+my cousin and married her. I had a few heart spasms over him, in
+particular; possibly because he was quite out of reach. It is true that
+they were all more of or less of a type--tall and thin and dark, with
+something very keen and clever and modern in their lean--rather hard
+faces.”
+“Hi!” cried Ida.
+“What is the matter? You look at me as if you had seen a ghost.”
+Ida threw back her head and laughed, showing her sharp little white
+teeth, and straining her throat until the firm flesh looked thin and
+drawn, over too strong muscles. “Oh, Lord! I was just thinking what
+a lot of trouble I’m in for, playing dragon to my lily-white lady. I
+guess about half the men in the world are brunettes, fat or lean. Say,
+are you going to the Prom? It’s only a month off.”
+“I hadn’t thought about it. Probably. I have been asked to be a
+patroness, and Mark is sure to want to go. Have you decided what to
+wear?”
+“Ma gave me a coral-red silk when I married, and I’m going to make it
+over and veil it with black net.”
+“Splendid!” cried Ora warmly. “Bring it up to the house. Mrs. Finley is
+really an excellent seamstress. We’ll all take a hand. It will be great
+fun. And you will look stunning.”
+“What will you wear?”
+“I expect some gowns from my New York dressmaker in a few days. It will
+depend upon the state of my complexion, I fancy.”
+XVIII
+Ora received another budget of Ida’s philosophy on the day before the
+Prom; she had taken her a long string of pink coral she had found
+among her old possessions, and after Ida had wound it in her hair
+and round her neck, and finally tried on her gown, and then draped
+Ora successively in various scarves, remnants of her own wedding
+finery--being almost as interested in the new complexion as Ora
+herself--they had suddenly come to the conclusion that while in Europe
+they would assume the mental attitude of girls travelling without a
+chaperon. They would see the world from the independent girl’s point
+of view, flirt like girls, not like married women (which at least
+would save their consciences), force men to accept the phenomenon. For
+a time they discussed the superior advantages of being young widows,
+but, alluring and even thrilling as were the possibilities evoked, they
+dismissed the alternative on the ground that it might prove a bore
+always to be on the defensive; man making no secret of his attitude
+toward widows. Besides, they felt a delicacy about burying their
+indulgent husbands even in mental effigy. As counterfeit girls they
+could crowd enough excitement into six months to serve them in memory
+during long periods of Butte.
+“It will be some bluff,” cried Ida. “And believe me, we’ll have the
+time of our lives. And no remorse in mine. I intend to flirt the limit,
+for I’m just ready to quit being a mother for a while and see a man’s
+eyes kindle when he comes nigh--see him playing about at the end of
+a string. I didn’t have near enough of it even when I had half Butte
+at my feet--excuse what sounds like conceit but is cold fact. Now,
+I’m going to light up every man I take a fancy to. I don’t care an
+abandoned prospect hole whether I hurt ’em or not. All they are good
+for is to give us a good time.”
+“Ida!” Ora was aghast as she often had been before at these naked
+feminine revelations. “You talk like a man-eater. I hope to heaven I am
+not like that down deep.”
+“Oh, maybe you won’t be so bad because you haven’t got as much vanity.
+Mine’s insatiable, I guess, and good old Mother Nature taught me the
+trick of covering it up with the don’t-care-a-damn air combined with
+the come-hither eye. That does the trick. And they get what hurt’s
+going. I don’t. You’ll cultivate men, thinking it’s your vanity waked
+up, or mere youth, or because it’s time to have a fling, but what
+you really are after is the one and only man. The Companion. The
+Sympathetic Soul. The Mate. All that rot. He don’t exist, kiddo. He’s
+the modern immaculate conception, and he’s generally stillborn; the
+bungling doctor being the plain unadulterated male inside of himself.
+You’ve got to be your own companion, and if you want happiness you can
+get it by expecting just nothing of men. Use them. Throw them on the
+ash heap. Pass on to the next. Quit sitting on the watch tower with
+your eyes trained on the horizon for the prince that is born and lives
+and dies in a woman’s imagination.”
+“I have seen happy--united couples--who had been married for years.”
+“Oh, yes; some couples are born to jog along together, and some wives
+are born man-tamers, and get a lot of satisfaction out of it. But
+you’re much too high-falutin’ for that. You’ll always dream of the
+impossible--not only in man but of what he’s got to give--which ain’t
+much. And I didn’t need all them--those--psychological and problem
+and worldly novels you made me read, translated from half a dozen
+languages, either. You take my advice, Ora, and don’t start off on any
+fool hunt for an ideal. Men are just matter-of-fact two-legged animals,
+and as selfish as a few thousand years of fool women have naturally
+made them. He does well while he’s courting because he’s naturally good
+at bluff. But every bit of romance oozes out of him after he’s eaten
+his first breakfast of ham and eggs at home. We can keep up the bluff
+forever. Men can’t. Each one of them’s got a kid twin brother inside
+that plays marbles till he dies and makes you feel older every day. No,
+sir! If I ever had any delusions, I’ve got over them good and plenty.
+And I thank the Lord,” she added piously.
+“I think that rather adorable, you know: the eternal boy. And I fancy
+it is all that saves men from becoming horrors; in this country, at
+least--when you consider the unending struggle, and strain, and sordid
+business of money getting. They use up all their bluff in the battle of
+life, poor things. Why shouldn’t they be natural with us?...”
+Ora was recalling this conversation as she sat in her bedroom on the
+following evening. Her elemental yet uncannily sophisticated friend
+had a way of crashing chords out of jealously hidden nerves, which no
+exercise of will could disconnect from the logical parts of the brain.
+If it were true that what her now rampant ego, too long starved, really
+demanded was man and romance, she wished she had let herself run to
+seed until it was too late to reclaim her lost beauty and adventure
+into temptation. But a glance into the mirror deprived her of any
+further desire to join the vast sisterhood of unattractive females.
+Moreover, she had faith in the dominance of her will and common sense,
+and if her beauty would help her to the mental contacts she craved with
+brilliant and interesting men, far be it from her to execrate it.
+She dismissed the mood of self-analysis impatiently and opened her
+wardrobe, although half inclined not to attend the Prom. She was
+one of the patronesses, but her presence was not essential. It was
+pre-eminently the night of nights for young folks--brownies and
+squabs--and the absence of a married woman of twenty-six would pass
+unrecorded. Not a man in Butte interested her personally, nor was she
+in a frame of mind to be interested by any of the too specialised
+products of the West. Nor was she inordinately fond of dancing; there
+really was no object in going to this party save to witness the début
+and possible triumph of her protégée.
+But she felt something more than indifference toward this party. It
+was as if a gong sounded a warning in the depths of her brain--in her
+subconsciousness, perhaps, where instinct, that child of ancestral
+experience, dwelt. But even while she hesitated she knew that she
+should go, and she took one of her new gowns from a long drawer, and
+then began to arrange her hair.
+It was now some five months since Miss Ruby Miller had taken her in
+hand, and if the young woman’s bank account was heavier her pride as
+an artist far outweighed it. Ora’s hair was soft, abundant, the colour
+of warm ashes. The skin of her face was as white and transparent,
+as “pearly” to use its doctor’s own descriptive word, as the fine
+protected surface of her slender throat, her thin but by no means bony
+neck. Her lips were pink; they never would be red; and after one taste
+of “lip stick,” Ora had declined to have them improved by art. But
+they were a soft country-rose pink and suited her clear whiteness far
+better than scarlet. Her eyes, never so clear and startling as now,
+lighted up the cold whiteness of her face and made her pink mouth look
+childish and somewhat pathetic. If her lips had been red, her face
+would have had the sinister suggestion so many women achieve with the
+assistance of art; as it was she looked by no means harmless as she
+smiled at herself in the mirror and coiled her hair softly on the top
+of her head. After some experimenting she had decided that she could
+not improve upon an arrangement which for the present at least was all
+her own.
+She rang for Custer to hook her gown. It was a very soft gown of white
+satin draped about the bust with lace and chiffon. It was cut to the
+waist line in the back and almost as low in front, for her figure was
+hardly more developed than a growing girl’s; and it was unrelieved by
+colour. She had already put on the string of pearls her mother had
+hidden when the other jewels were sold in Paris. Altogether it was a
+costume she would not have dared to wear even two months ago, when a
+touch of colour on the bodice or in her hair was necessary to divert
+attention from her spoiled complexion.
+Custer had been her mother’s maid for many years and had returned with
+her to Butte. After an interval of employment elsewhere, she had come
+to Ora as soon as Mark had built his house. She hooked the gown, pinned
+up a stray lock with an invisible hairpin, shook out the little train,
+and stood off.
+“It reminds me of the way your mother used to look,” she said, “and
+you’re even prettier than she was, Miss Ora--now. But I fancy you’ll be
+more comfortable in this gown when you wear it in London. These ladies
+dress smartly enough, but never as low as the English ladies do,
+leastways out here. I fancy it’s the Western men. They don’t seem to
+approve of showing too much.”
+“Well, I think I’ll rather enjoy startling the natives. Quick--give me
+my wrap! I hear Mr. Blake coming. No controversy here.”
+XIX
+The Prom was held not in the School of Mines but in The Coliseum, a
+large hall over a saloon and garage, half way between The Hill and The
+Flat, requisitioned by all classes when the weather forbade the use
+of Columbia Gardens. The walls were covered with the School colours,
+copper and green, flags, and college pennants. The ceiling was a
+network of electric lights with coloured globes, copper and green,
+fluttering paper and sprays of apple blossoms, brought from far! “Cozy
+corners” looked like fragments of a lower altitude, and the faithful
+palm was on duty everywhere. The orchestra, on a suspended balcony in
+the centre of the room, was invisible within the same elaborate scheme
+of decoration.
+When Ora entered with her husband the Grand March had finished and the
+instruments were tuning for a waltz. She saw Ida standing directly
+under the orchestra surrounded by several men who patently were
+clamouring for dances. Even in that great room full of women dressed
+from New York and Paris, Ida looked distinctive and superb. Ora smiled
+proudly, as she observed her, quite oblivious that the throng of men
+and women and indignant “squabs,” who had been discussing the wife
+of Gregory Compton, had transferred their attention to the dazzling
+apparition in white. Ida wore her gown of coral silk, whose flimsiness
+was concealed under a mist of black shadow lace. The coral beads
+clasped her strong white throat and fell to her supple waist. There was
+a twist of coral tulle in her black hair, which was arranged in the
+rolling fashion of the moment, obeyed by every other woman in the room
+save Ora Blake. And her cheeks, her lips, were as coral as the fruit of
+the sea. She had powdered her face lightly to preserve its tone through
+exercise and heat. All the arrogance of youth and beauty and powerful
+magnetism was expressed in the high poise of her head; a faint smile of
+triumph curved above her little white teeth; her body was in perfect
+repose yet as alert as that of a healthy young cat. The waltz began and
+she glided off in the arm of a young mining engineer from the East. She
+danced precisely as the best-bred women in the room danced (early in
+the evening): ease without abandon, dignity without stiffness.
+“Heavens, but the American woman is adaptable!” thought Ora. “I never
+realised before exactly what that time-worn platitude meant. Probably
+the standards in the Ida set are not so different from ours, after all.
+As for looks and carriage she might have three generations behind her.
+Is it democracy or the actress instinct of woman--permitted its full
+development in this country for the first time in her history?”
+This was not entirely a monologue, but addressed for the most part
+to Professor Becke, one of the most distinguished instructors of the
+School of Mines, and one of the men she liked best in Butte. He was a
+tall fair man, with a keen thin fimbriated face, and long fine hands.
+Ora made a point of asking him to dine with her once or twice a month.
+He led the way to two of the chairs on the side of the hall after she
+had announced that she did not intend to dance.
+“But this is the first party we have had for weeks,” he said. “They
+won’t leave you to me for long.”
+“I don’t feel in the mood for dancing. Besides,” she added with a new
+daring, “I’m all in white and looking very white once more; I don’t
+want to get warm and spoil the effect.”
+He stared into her challenging eyes as if he saw her for the first
+time. In that room, full of colour and of vivid women and young girls,
+she produced an almost disconcerting effect with her statuesque beauty,
+her gleaming whiteness, her frail white body so daringly displayed in
+its white gown. And, oddly enough, to those staring at her, she made
+the other women look not only commonplace but cold.
+Ora smiled to herself; she was quite aware of the impression at
+work, not only on the scientific brain, but on others more readily
+responsive; she had considered the prudence of practising on Butte
+before departing for wider fields.
+The Professor changed colour, but replied steadily: “Fancy you two
+extraordinary creatures loose in Europe! You should take a bodyguard.
+I can understand Compton giving his consent, for he is the kind of man
+that wouldn’t remember whether his wife were twenty or forty at the end
+of his honeymoon, and there can be little between them in any case. But
+Blake!”
+“Oh, we’ll come home without a scandal,” said Ora lightly. “Ida is the
+reverse of what she looks, and I--well, I am the proverbial ‘cold’
+American woman--that the European anathematises. Ida, of course, looks
+the siren, and I shall have some trouble protecting her, until she
+learns how far she can go. But at least I am forewarned.”
+“I fancy you will have more trouble protecting yourself!” Professor
+Becke’s voice was not as even as usual. His intellect was brilliant,
+and illuminating, and never more so than when in the society of this
+young woman whom heretofore he had admired merely as a vivacious and
+exceptional mind; but, startling as this revelation of subtle and
+alluring womanhood was, he remembered that he was no longer young and
+that he had an admirable wife with an eagle eye; he had no intention
+of scorching his fingers in the attempt to light a flame that would
+guide him to the rocks even were he invited to apply the torch. But
+he was a man and he sighed a little for his vanished youth. If he had
+been twenty years younger he fancied that he would have forgotten his
+good lady and risked burning his heart out. He moved his eyes away
+deliberately and they rested on Mark Blake, mopping his scarlet face
+after a lively waltz. He was a kindly man, but all that was deathlessly
+masculine in him grinned with a cynical satisfaction.
+“Who is that?” asked Ora abruptly, and forgetting a faint sensation of
+pique.
+“Ah! Who?”
+She indicated a man leaning against one of the doorways, and looking
+over the crowd with unseeing eyes. “Heavens! What a jaw! Is he as
+‘strong’ as he looks, or is he one of Bismarck’s wooden posts painted
+to look like a man of iron?--Why, it’s----”
+“That is Gregory Compton, and he is no wooden post, believe me.”
+“I haven’t seen him for years. _Can_ any man be as strong as _he_
+looks?”
+“Probably not. He hasn’t had time to discover his master weaknesses
+yet, so I don’t pretend to guess at them myself. At present he is too
+absorbed in squeezing our poor brains dry----”
+“Doesn’t he ever smile?”
+“So rarely that the boys, who have a nickname for all their fellow
+students, call him ‘Sunny Jim.’”
+“What do you think of his wife?” asked Ora abruptly. She hardly knew
+why she asked the question, nor why she felt a secret glow at the
+expected answer.
+The Professor turned his appraising eye upon the substantial vision
+in coral and black that tonight had been pronounced the handsomest
+woman in Butte. “There could be no finer example of the obvious. All
+her goods are in the front window. There are no surprises behind that
+superlative beauty; certainly no revelations.”
+“I wonder! Ida is far cleverer than you think, and quite capable of
+affording your sex a good deal in the way of surprises, not to say
+shocks.”
+“Not in the way I mean--not as you will do, worse luck for my helpless
+sex. There is no soul there, and, I fancy, little heart. She is the
+last woman Gregory Compton should have married.”
+“Why?” Ora tried to look bored but polite.
+“Oh--whatever she may have for other men she has nothing for him. She
+looks the concentrated essence of female--American female--egoism.
+Compton needs a woman who would give him companionship when he wanted
+it, and, at the same time, be willing in service.”
+Ora bristled. “Service? How like a man. Are we still expected to serve
+men? I thought the world was moving on.”
+Professor Becke, who, like most men married to a domestic
+commander-in-chief, was strenuously opposed to giving women any powers
+backed up by law, asked with cold reserve: “Are you a suffragette?”
+Ora laughed. “Not yet. But I just escaped being born in the Twentieth
+Century. I belong to it at all events.”
+“So you do, but you never have been in love----” He broke off in
+embarrassment; he had forgotten for the moment that this white virginal
+creature had been married for six years. She showed no resentment, for
+she barely had heard him; she was looking at Gregory Compton again, and
+concluding that he might appeal strongly to the supplementary female,
+but must antagonise women whose highly specialised intellects, at
+home only on the heights of civilisation, had submerged their primal
+inheritance.
+Professor Becke went on:
+“Even a clever woman’s best career is a man. If you women develop
+beyond nature that powerful old tyrant will simply snuff you out.”
+“Well, man will go too. That may be our final triumph.”
+“Atlantis over again! And quite in order that the race should perish
+through the excesses of woman. Then Nature, having wiped her slate
+clean with a whoop, will begin all over again and precisely where she
+did before. No doubt she will permit a few records to survive as a
+warning.”
+“You may be right--but, although I have an idea I shall one day want to
+justify my existence by being of some use, it won’t be because my sex
+instinct has got the better of my intelligence. But I refuse to think
+of that until I have had a royal good time for a few years.”
+“That is your right,” he said impulsively. “You are altogether
+exceptional--and you have had six years of Butte! I am glad your mine
+has panned out so splendidly. There is quite an excitement in the
+Sampling Works----”
+“What?” Ora forgot Gregory Compton. “I knew the mine was doing well----”
+“Surely you know that your profits in royalties already must be
+something over a hundred thousand dollars----” He stopped in confusion.
+Ora’s face was radiant and she never had liked Mark as sincerely as
+at that moment. “It is just like him! He wanted to wait and give me a
+great surprise--my husband, I mean.”
+“And I have spoilt it! I am really sorry. Please don’t tell him.”
+“I won’t. And I’ll be the most surprised woman in the world when he
+takes me to the bank to sign my letter of credit. You needn’t mind.
+I’ll have the fun of thinking about it for five months--and rolling it
+up in my imagination. Ah!”
+“Compton has recognised you, I think.”
+Ora had met the long narrow concentrated gaze of her husband’s friend.
+She bowed slightly. Compton made a step forward, hesitated, braced
+himself, and walked toward her.
+“A constitutionally shy man, but a brave one,” said Professor Becke
+with a grim smile, as he rose to resign his seat. “A strong magnet has
+pulled up many a sinking heart. Good evening, Compton. Glad you honour
+our party, even if you don’t dance.”
+“I intend to ask Mrs. Blake to dance.” Gregory betrayed nothing of his
+inner trepidation although he did not smile. He could always rely upon
+the stern mask into which he had trained his visage not to betray him.
+Ora, oblivious of her resolution not to dance, rose and placed her
+hand on his shoulder, smiling an absent farewell to Professor Becke.
+For a moment she forgot her resentful interest in this man in her
+astonishment that he danced so well. She had the impression of dancing
+with a light supple creature of the woods, one who could be quite
+abandoned if he chose, although he held her as if he were embracing
+a feather. She wondered if it were his drop of aboriginal blood and
+looked up suddenly. To her surprise he was smiling, and his smile so
+altered the immobility of his face that she lost her breath.
+“I feel as if I were dancing with a snowflake,” was his unexpected
+remark.
+“You look the last man to pay compliments and murmur sweet nothings.”
+“Are you disappointed?”
+“Perhaps I am. I rather liked your attitude--expression, rather--of
+cool superiority.”
+“Why don’t you use the word prig?”
+“Oh, no!--Well, perhaps that is what I did mean.”
+He stopped short, regardless of the annoyance he caused several
+impetuous couples. “If you did I shall leave you right here.”
+“I did not. Please go on. Everybody is staring at us. You took me
+completely by surprise.”
+“I? Why?”
+“You are the last man I should expect the usual small talk from.”
+“Small talk? Heavens knows I have none of that. Girls used to talk my
+head off in self-defence. I merely said what I thought. What did you
+expect me to talk about?”
+“Oh--mines, I suppose.” Again, to her surprise, his face lit up as if
+by an inner and jealously hidden torch. But he said soberly:
+“Well, there is no more interesting subject. Never has been since the
+world began. Where shall we find a seat?”
+The waltz was over. The chairs were filling. Young couples were
+flitting toward the embowered corners.
+“Let’s go outside,” he said abruptly.
+“What? On the street? And nobody goes out of doors from a ballroom in
+June.”
+“Good reason for going. Come with me.”
+He led her to the cloak-room. “Get your wrap,” he said.
+Ora frowned, but she asked for her heavy white woollen wrap and put it
+on; then automatically followed him down the stairs and into the street.
+“Why don’t you get your coat and hat?” she asked, still dazed. “It’s
+cold, you know.”
+“I never was cold in my life,” he said contemptuously. He hailed a
+taxi. “I must go up to the School of Mines, and ask the result of some
+assaying,” he added as he almost lifted her in. “Then we can talk up
+there. May I smoke?”
+“I don’t care what you do.”
+He smiled directly into her resentful eyes this time and tucked the
+lap-robe about her.
+XX
+He apparently forgot her during the short drive and stared through
+the open window of the cab, his thoughts, no doubt, in the assay room
+of the School, where several students, as ardent as himself, were
+experimenting with ore they had managed to secure from a recently
+opened mine. Ora’s resentment vanished, partly because she reflected
+that a new and original experience was a boon to be grateful for in
+Butte, but more because she was thrilled with the sense of adventure.
+Her woman’s instinct gave assurance that he had no intention of making
+love to her, but it also whispered that, whether she liked or disliked
+him when the adventure was over, she would have something to remember.
+And it was the first time she ever had indulged in recklessness. Butte
+would be by the ears on the morrow if it learned of her escapade.
+When they reached the dark School of Mines he dismissed the taxi, and
+said to Ora, “Wait for me here. I shan’t be a moment.”
+He disappeared and Ora shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the
+steps. He returned in a few moments and extended himself over several
+steps below her.
+“Comfortable?” he asked.
+“Very!”
+“It’s a night, isn’t it?” he asked abruptly.
+He was not looking at her but at the low sulphurous blue sky, with its
+jewelled lattice, white, yellow, green, blue. There were no tree tops
+to rustle, but from the window below came the voluptuous strains of the
+Merry Widow waltz, mingling incongruously with the raucous noises of
+the sleepless town: the roaring street-cars, the blasts of engines, the
+monstrous purr of motor-cats.
+“If we could cut out that jungle,” he said with a sigh. “Are you warm
+enough?” He pulled the cloak about the lower part of her body. “I
+should have taken the rug from the cab----”
+“I am warm enough,” she said impatiently, and what she longed to say
+was, “How in heaven’s name did you marry Ida Hook?” He had transferred
+his gaze to the city and she studied his face. Then she understood. In
+spite of its intense reserve and detachment, its strength and power,
+its thin sensitive mouth, it was the most passionate face she had
+ever seen. As a matter of fact she had been at pains to ignore the
+purely masculine side of men, her fastidious mind never indulging in
+comparisons. She half rose with a sense of panic. Again he looked up
+solicitously.
+“I am sure you are not comfortable. I could find you some cushions----”
+“Please don’t. So you love beauty?” She was deeply annoyed with
+herself, but could think of nothing less banal. He certainly was not
+easy to talk to.
+“Don’t you? It would be odd if you didn’t. One reason I brought you up
+up here was because I wanted to look at you in the starlight where you
+belong--the cold starlight--not in that crowded gaudy room full of mere
+human beings.”
+“Are you a poet? I have somehow received the impression that you are a
+mere walking ambition.”
+“I’m no poet if you mean one of those writing fellows.” His tone
+expressed unmitigated scorn.
+“Well, no doubt you have read a great deal of poetry, little as one
+would suspect it.”
+“Never read a line of it except when I had to decline it at school--any
+more than I’ve ever read a line of fiction.”
+“Well, you’ve missed a great deal,” said Ora tartly. “Poetry is
+an essential part of the beauty of the world, which you seem to
+appreciate. And the best of fiction is the best expression of current
+history. What do you think when you star-gaze?”
+“You mean, can I think at all when I haven’t read what other men have
+thought?”
+“No.--No doubt the most original brains are those that have not read
+too much, are not choked up.” Ora made this admission reluctantly, but
+he had caught her fairly. “Tell me at least what the stars suggest to
+you. About everything has been said of them that can be said. The poor
+old stars have been worked to death.”
+“The stars above Montana are watchfires protecting the treasure below.
+Perhaps they are bits of her treasures, gold, silver, copper, sapphire,
+that flew upward in the final cataclysm.”
+“I don’t know whether that is poetical or gross materialism.”
+“No mines, no poets. Nearly all conquest from the dawn of history
+down to the Boer War has had the acquisition of mineral wealth as
+its real object. The civilisation that follows is incidental; it
+merely means that the strongest race, which, of course, knows the
+most, wins. If ever we have a war with Mexico, what will be the
+cause? Mines. Incidentally we will civilise her. Peru, Mexico, India,
+the Americas--all have been invaded in their turn by more civilised
+nations, and all after plunder. They gave as much as they took, but
+little they cared about that. What opened up California? This great
+Northwest? Prospectors in search of gold. Excuse this lecture. I am the
+least talkative of men, but you have jarred my brain, somehow. Read the
+history of mines and mining if you want romance.”
+“As a matter of fact few things interest me more. I am so glad my mine
+has been leased for a year only. When that is up I am going to mine
+it myself. I’ll build a bungalow out there and go down every day.
+Perhaps in time I could be my own manager. At all events, think of the
+excitement of watching the ore as it comes up the shaft; of running
+through a lean vein and coming suddenly upon a chamber of an entirely
+different kind of ore from what you had been taking out. Great shoots
+full of free gold! Wire gold! Or that crisp brown-gold that looks as if
+it were boiling out of the ore and makes one want to bite it! Why are
+you staring so at me?”
+His eyes were more widely opened and brilliant than she had seen
+them. “Do you mean that?” he asked. “I’ve a great notion to tell you
+something that I’ve not told anyone.”
+“Do tell me!”
+She leaned down eagerly. She had dismissed the feeling of panic as
+something to be forgotten as quickly as possible. But her brain was on
+fire to penetrate his. She felt an extraordinary mental stimulation.
+But he relapsed into absolute silence, although he held his head,
+lowered again, at an angle that suggested he might be thinking
+intently. She moved impatiently, but he sat still, staring downward,
+his eyes narrow once more. She noticed irrelevantly how black his hair
+was, and her white hand went out stealthily as if magnetised, but was
+immediately restored to order. In the vibrating silence she had another
+glimmer of understanding. He wanted to tell her something personal,
+but his natural secretiveness and habit of reserve were engaged in a
+struggle with the unusual impulse. She shifted the ground.
+“I wish you would tell me something of your boyhood,” she said abruptly.
+He looked up in astonishment. “I never talk about myself----”
+“How very egoistical.”
+“Ego----”
+“No, I did not say egotistical.”
+“Ah!” There was another pause, although he looked at her with a frown.
+“I have talked to you more than I ever talk to anyone,” he said
+resentfully.
+“It is the stars, to say nothing of the isolation. We might be up
+on one of your escaped nuggets. Remember that I have heard of you
+constantly for six years--and met you before on one of those occasions
+when all persons look alike. How could I escape curiosity?”
+“I brought you out to look at in the proper setting. I can’t say I had
+any desire to talk to you. I suppose I should not keep you out here----”
+“I am much happier and more comfortable than in that hot room. But
+surely you need more recreation. Why do you never go to dances?”
+“Dances? I? I only went tonight----” He, too, apparently, was
+determined to keep their respective spouses out of the conversation,
+for he veered off quickly. “It is a sort of religion to attend the Prom
+even if you only show yourself. I was about to beat a retreat when I
+saw you. Of course it was my duty to shake hands. Besides, I wanted to
+see if you were real.” And he smiled up into her eyes.
+“Do you know that we are flirting?”
+“Well, let us flirt,” he replied comfortably. “I haven’t the least idea
+what it is, but I am not a bit in love with you, if that is what you
+mean.”
+Ora drew herself up rigidly. “Well, you are----” she began, aware
+that she had a temper. Then she laughed. Why quarrel with a novel
+experience? Her anger turned into a more subtle emotion. She was well
+aware of the dazzling brightness of her eyes. She leaned forward and
+concentrated her mind in an attempt to project her magnetism through
+them, although again with a feeling of panic; it was too much like the
+magnet rushing out to the iron.
+He returned that powerful gaze unmoved, although an expression of
+perplexity crossed his own eyes. She was disconcerted and asked lamely:
+“Is it true that you used to run away and prospect in the mountains?”
+His face lit up with an enthusiasm her fascinations had been unable to
+inspire; and a richer note came into his voice. “I was eleven the first
+time and stayed out for six months. Two years after I ran away again.
+The next time I went with my father’s permission. I worked in one of
+the Butte mines one summer--but otherwise--well, you see, there is a
+good deal to do on a ranch. This is the first time I have been able to
+do as I please.”
+Ora looked at his long slim figure, his brown hands that tonight, at
+least, expressed a sort of cruel deliberate repose. Whatever they may
+have been in their ranch days they were smooth and well cared for now.
+“Somehow, I can’t see you handling a pick,” she said doubtfully. “Is it
+true that you intend to work in the mines all summer?”
+“Part of it--when I am not working in a mill or a smelter. I’d be
+ashamed of myself if I couldn’t do anything that another man can do.
+Some of the best miners look like rats.”
+He looked like a highly-bred mettlesome race-horse himself, and Ora
+wondered, as she had before tonight: “Where did he get it? Who were his
+ancestors?” She had seen dukes that looked like farm hands, and royal
+princesses that might have been upper housemaids, but her feminine
+(and American) mind clung to the fallacy that it takes generations to
+produce the clean-cut shell. She determined to look up his family tree
+in Holland.
+“Well--Custer--my housekeeper--will look after you,” she said as
+naturally as if her thoughts had not wandered for a moment. “Shall you
+do any mining on your own place before we come back from Europe?”
+He started and looked at her apprehensively, then scowled.
+“What is the matter? You may not know it but at this moment your face
+looks like an Indian battle-axe.”
+To her surprise he laughed boyishly. “You startled me. I have heard of
+mind readers. Well, I will tell you what I wanted to a while back. But
+you must promise not to tell--anyone.”
+“I promise! I swear it! And do hurry. I’m afraid you’ll shut up tight
+again.”
+“No, I won’t. I don’t know that I’d tell you were it not that your own
+mine is just over the border; we may have to consolidate some day to
+save a lawsuit--No, I will be honest; I really want to tell you. It is
+this: Close to the northeast boundary line of my ranch is an almost
+barren hill of limestone and granite. Shortly before I left--last
+October--I discovered float on the side of the hill. There is no doubt
+in my mind that we have both come upon a new mineral belt, although
+whether we are in the middle or on one edge of it is another question.”
+He told her the story of the storm and of the uncovering of the
+float. Nor did he end his confidence with a bare statement of fact.
+He told her of his sensations as he sat on the ragged ground leaning
+against the roots of the slain trees, his mental struggle, and final
+resolution. Then he told her of the hopes and dreams of his boyhood,
+and what it had meant to him--this sudden revelation that he had a
+mine under his feet--and all his own! He talked for half an hour, with
+the deep satisfaction that only a shy and silent person feels when
+talking into a sympathetic mind for the first time. Ora listened with
+a curious sense of excitement, as if she were overboard in a warm and
+pleasant but unknown sea. There were times when she felt like talking
+very fast herself. But she did nothing of the sort, merely jogging him
+diplomatically when he showed signs of relapsing into silence. Finally
+he stopped in the middle of a sentence and said abruptly:
+“That’s all.”
+“Oh! And you really have made up your mind not to begin work for a
+year?”
+“Quite!”
+“But--have you thought--it is only tonight I learned that the engineers
+who leased my mine have struck a rich vein. Suppose it dips toward
+yours----”
+“It does----”
+“Have they put on a big force?”
+“Naturally. They are rushing things, as they know they will not get the
+mine another year.”
+“Well, suppose their vein runs under your hill--through their
+side-line?”
+He stirred uneasily. “I am watching them. So far the dip is very
+slight. It may take a turn, or go down straight; or,” and he smiled at
+her again, “it may pinch out. Nothing is so uncertain as an ore vein.”
+“Do you think it will?” asked Ora anxiously.
+“No, don’t worry. I was down the other day; and did some prospecting on
+my own account besides. I think you’ve got a big mine.”
+“But suppose the vein should take a sudden dip to the right--you don’t
+want them burrowing under your hill----”
+“They won’t burrow under my hill,” he said grimly. “I should persuade
+them that there was an even richer vein on their left.”
+“Is there?”
+“I have reason to think so. They naturally would want to avoid the
+expenses of a lawsuit, and of course they would waste a lot of time
+sinking a shaft or driving across. Their lease would be pretty well up
+by the time----”
+“You _are_ cold-blooded! What of me? I should be making nothing,
+either.”
+“You’d make it all later on. How much do you expect to spend in Europe
+anyway? You must have made a thousand dollars a day since the first
+carload of ore was smelted.”
+She was on the point of replying that a woman could not have enough
+money in Europe, when she remembered the conspiracy to make him believe
+that a thousand dollars would cover the expenses of his wife.
+“Oh, it is merely that I don’t like being one of the pawns in your
+game,” she said.
+“You’d have all the more later on. Ore doesn’t run away.”
+“How _can_ you stay away from your mine? I feel--after all that you
+have told me!--that you are wild to get at it?”
+“So I am! So I am! But I said I wouldn’t and that is the end of it. I
+want that last year at the School.”
+“What shall you do with all that money--if your hill turns out to be
+full of gold? More, I hope, than the rest of our millionaires have
+done for Montana--which is exactly nothing. You might give the State a
+complete irrigating system.”
+“Good idea! Perhaps I will. But that is in the future. I want the fun
+first----”
+“Fun? It is the passion of your life, your great romance. You’ll never
+love a woman like that.”
+“Of course not.” But he was staring at her. He had a sensation of
+something swimming in the depths of his mind, striving to reach the
+surface. He changed his position suddenly and sat up. “And you?” he
+asked. “You have the same vision. Couldn’t you feel the same absorbing
+passion----”
+“For ore?” The scorn of her entire sex was in her voice. “Dead cold
+metal----”
+“Every molecule, every individual atom is alive and quivering----”
+“I am not interested in chemistry.”
+He still stared at her. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes blazing. She
+sprang to her feet.
+“Ida is the wife for you! She’ll never ask much of you and you never
+could hurt her, not even if you tried, she is fortunate in lacking just
+that which you could hurt.”
+“What is it?” He spoke eagerly. He, too, had risen, his eyes still on
+her face. Unconsciously he held his breath.
+“Oh, you wouldn’t understand it I told you--and I haven’t the least
+desire to tell you. She will make you comfortable, do you credit when
+you are a rich man, spend your money royally. That is all _you_ will
+ask of _her_. Now, I’ll go back.”
+He was a step or two below her. Their eyes were on a level. He looked
+at her sombrely for a moment, then walked past her up the steps.
+“You need not call a cab. I shall go home. I should only set them all
+talking if I appeared in the ballroom again. You can tell Mark that I
+didn’t feel well and that you took me home.”
+They walked along the high terrace until they found a point of easy
+descent.
+“What have I said to make you angry?” he asked.
+Ora laughed with determined good humour. “It was not I. It was merely
+my sex that flared up. Please forget it.”
+“I want to thank you for what you have done for Ida,” he said abruptly,
+and it was evident that the words cost him more than his former
+revelations. “It was a great thing for you to do.”
+“Oh, Ida has become my most intimate friend. I have never enjoyed Butte
+so much as in these last few months.”
+“Has she? And Mark is my best friend.” He jerked his head in annoyance;
+manifestly the remark had been too spontaneous. They were before her
+gate. She extended a limp hand, but he held it firmly. He was smiling
+again although he looked depressed.
+“Do give me a friendly shake,” he said. “I do like you and you will be
+going in a few days.”
+“I do not go for five months.”
+“You can go next week. I’ll square it with Mark.”
+“I don’t wish to go next week. Besides, Mark expects some important
+people here in the autumn, and needs my help. He has a deal on.”
+“I’ll dispossess Mark of any such notion. It’s all nonsense, this idea
+of a man’s needing his wife’s help in business. It’s a poor sort of man
+that can’t manage his own affairs, and Mark is not a poor sort. Now,
+you are angry again!”
+“That would be foolish of me,” she said icily. “You merely don’t
+understand. You never could. Do you want to get rid of me?” she asked
+abruptly.
+“Yes, I think I do.”
+Then Ora relented. She also gave him the smile that she reserved as her
+most devastating weapon. “I am sorry,” she murmured, “but I don’t think
+I can be ready for at least three months. Nor Ida.”
+“You go next week,” he said.
+And go they did.
+XXI
+Gregory and Mark established their wives comfortably in a drawing-room
+of the limited for Chicago, asked the usual masculine questions about
+tickets and trunk checks, expressed their masculine surprise that
+nothing had been forgotten, told them to be careful not to lean over
+the railing of the observation car, nor to make themselves ill with the
+numerous boxes of candy sent to the train, admonished them not to spend
+too much money in New York, to send their trunks to the steamer the day
+before they sailed, and give themselves at least two hours to get to
+the docks; above all not to mislay their letters of credit; then kissed
+them dutifully, and, as the train moved out, stood on the platform with
+solemn faces and hearts of indescribable buoyancy.
+“My Lord!” exclaimed Ida, as she blew her last kiss. “If Greg was going
+along I’d have to take care of him every step of the way. I wouldn’t
+trust him with the tickets the length of the train. Men do make me
+tired. They keep up the farce that we’re children just to keep up that
+other grand farce that they run the Universe. Any old plank to cling
+to.”
+Ora kept her sentiments to herself.
+If Mark, who was fond of his wife, and more or less dependent upon her,
+wondered vaguely that he should rejoice in the prospect of six months
+of bachelorhood, Gregory was almost puzzled. Ida was now no more to him
+personally than a responsibility he had voluntarily assumed and was
+determined to treat with complete justice; but at least she made him
+more comfortable than he had ever been before, and he had trained her
+to let him alone. Since her rapid improvement her speech had ceased
+to irritate him; she was never untidy, never anything but a pleasant
+picture to look at. He had also noted on the night of the party that
+she was indisputably the handsomest woman in the room and received the
+homage of men with dignity and poise. He had felt proud of her, and
+comfortably certain that he could trust her. Altogether a model wife.
+Nevertheless as he walked out Park Street after he left Mark at his
+office (Ida not only had sent his personal possessions to the Blake
+house but found time to unpack and put them away) his brain, which
+had been curiously depressed during the past week, felt as if full of
+effervescing wine.
+“Jove!” he thought, “why do men marry? What has any woman living to
+give a man half as good as his freedom.”
+His freedom was to be reasonably complete. He had told Ida to expect
+no letters from him and not to write herself unless she were in
+trouble. With all the fervour of his masculine soul he hated to write
+letters. Long since he had bought a typewriter, on which he rattled off
+necessary business communications so briefly that they would have cost
+him little more on the wire. He knew that he should hear constantly of
+his wife’s welfare from Mark, and had no desire to be inflicted with
+descriptions of scenery and shops.
+He felt a spasm of envy, however, as he thought of the letters Mark
+would receive from Ora. _Her_ letters, no doubt, would be worth
+reading, not only because she had a mind, and already had seen too much
+of Europe to comment on its obvious phases, but because they would be
+redolent of her subtle exquisite personality. He had once come upon a
+package of old letters among his mother’s possessions and read them.
+They had been written by his great-great-grandmother to her husband
+while he was a soldier in the War of the Revolution. It was merely the
+simple life of the family, the farm, and the woods, that she described,
+but Gregory never recalled those letters without feeling again the
+subtle psychological emanation of the writer’s sweet and feminine but
+determinate personality; it hovered like a wraith over the written
+words, imprisoned, imperishable, until the paper should fall to dust.
+So, he imagined, something of Ora’s essence would take wing on the
+rustling sheets of her letters.
+But the spasm of envy passed. Ora would write no such letters to Mark
+Blake. Her correspondence with her husband would be perfunctory,
+practical, brief. To some man she might write pages that would keep him
+up at night, reading and rereading, interpreting illusive phrases,
+searching for hidden and personal meanings, while two individualities
+met and melted.... But this yearning passed also. To receive such
+letters a man must answer them and that would be hell.
+He was on his way to change his clothes for overalls and get his blue
+dinner pail, well filled, from Custer. But before he reached the house
+he conceived an abrupt and violent distaste for life underground, an
+uncontrollable desire--or one which he made no effort to control--for
+long rides over the ranch, and a glimpse of Limestone Hill. It was
+seven months since he had seen his ranch save in snatches, and he
+wanted it now for months on end. He was not a town-bred man, and he
+suddenly hated the sight of Butte with her naked angles and feverish
+energies. He realised also that his mind insistently demanded a rest.
+To be sure he had intended to work in the mines for eight hours of the
+day, but he had planned to study for ten. Well, he would have none
+of it! Caprice was no characteristic of his, but he felt full of it
+this brilliant morning. If the air was so light in Butte that his feet
+seemed barely to touch the ground, so clear that the mountains seemed
+walking down the valley, what must it be in the country?
+He went rapidly to the house, left a message for Mark, packed a
+suit-case and took the next train for Pony. There he hired a horse and
+rode to his ranch.
+One of the sudden June rains had come while he was in the train. It
+had ceased, but a mass of low clouds brushing the higher tree tops
+was almost black. Their edges were silver: they were filled with a
+cold imprisoned sunlight, which transformed the distant mountains into
+glass, transparent, with black shadows in their depths. Montana looked
+as giving an exhibition of her astral body. But as he rode the clouds
+drifted away, the sky deepened to the rich voluptuous blue of that
+high altitude; even the grey soil showing through the thin grass of
+the granite hills looked warmer. Where the soil was thicker the ground
+was covered with a gorgeous tapestry of wildflowers; the birds sang
+desperately as if they knew how short was their springtime, affected
+like mortals by the thin intoxicating air. Even the waters in the creek
+roared as if making the most of their brief span. The mountains lost
+their glassy look; blue, ice-topped, they were as full of young and
+vivid life as when they danced about, heedless that the heaving earth
+purposed they should wait for centuries before settling into things
+of beauty for unborn man to admire. They never will look old, those
+mountains of Montana; man may take the treasure from their veins and
+the jewels from their crowns, but they drink forever the elixir of the
+air. The blue dawn fills their spirit with a deathless exultation, the
+long blue-gold days their bodies with immortal life, the starry nights,
+swinging their lamps so close to the snow fields, unroll the dramas
+of other worlds. They are no mere masses of rock and dirt or even of
+metal, these mountains of Montana, but man’s vision of eternal youth.
+Gregory drew rein on the crest of one of his own hills. Below lay
+the De Smet ranch, and he drew a long breath with that sensation of
+serene pride which comes to men when they contemplate their landed
+possessions, or their wives on state occasions. All the arable soil,
+on flat and hillside, was green; alfalfa, with its purple flowers,
+filled the bottoms; the winter wheat was rippling in the wind; the
+acres covered with the tender leaves of young flax were like a densely
+woven lawn. On the hills and the public range roamed his cattle. All of
+this fair land, including its possible treasure, was his, absolutely.
+By the terms of his father’s will he paid yearly dividends from the
+sale of steers and crops to three aunts, now reduced to two. Whether by
+accident or design, Mr. Compton had omitted all mention of “minerals
+under the earth.” Gregory had not the least objection to making these
+ladies rich, when his mines yielded their wealth, but he was jealous
+of every acre of his inheritance, far more of its secrets. All the
+passionate intensity of his nature he had poured out on his land and
+its subterranean mysteries, and he would have hailed an invention which
+would enable him to dismiss every man from his employ. But his head was
+hard and he always smiled grimly at the finish of his fanciful desires.
+He turned his horse toward the distant group of farm buildings, then
+wheeled abruptly and rode toward Limestone Hill. He had anticipated a
+long talk with the enthusiastic Oakley on the subject of crops, but he
+suddenly realised that he was in no mood to talk to anyone and that his
+secret reason for coming to the ranch was to visit his hill. Oakley
+would cling to him for hours. One glance had assured him that the crops
+would have satisfied a state experimental farm. Mining would fascinate
+him in its every detail, but as far as agriculture was concerned, he
+was interested only in results.
+As he rode toward the hill he frowned at the signs of activity on
+the other side of his boundary line. A large gasoline hoist had
+been installed. The waste dump was almost as high as a hill, four
+“double-sixes”--six-horse teams--stood waiting to be loaded from the
+ore bins. There were a group of miners’ cabins, a long mess-house, and
+a blacksmith’s shop. This was the only shadow on his future: he wanted
+no lawsuits, nor did he want to enter into partnership with anyone, not
+even Ora Blake.
+But he dismissed the matter from his mind, tied his horse, and,
+although Montanans are a slow race on foot out of deference to the
+altitude, ran up the hill. A glance told him that his secret was
+undiscovered. He knelt down and dug up the float, his heart hammering.
+And then he deliberately let the prospector’s fever take possession of
+him. The soles of his feet prickled as if responding to the magnets
+below; he had a fancy that gold, molten, was running through his veins.
+But his brain worked clearly. He was aware that his exultation and
+excitement were not due to the lure of gold alone, but to the still
+more subtle pleasure that a strong and obstinate nature feels in
+breaking a vow and deliberately succumbing to temptation. He had vowed
+in good faith that he would not open his mine until the third of June
+of the following year. But a week before he had spent an enchanted hour
+with a woman, and during the rest of that night--he had walked half way
+to Silver Bow and back--he had wanted that woman more than he had ever
+wanted anything on earth. He had forgotten his mine.
+At first he had lashed himself with scorn, remembering his infatuation
+for the woman he had married. He felt something of the indignant
+astonishment of the small boy who imagines himself catching a second
+attack of measles, before he discovers it is scarlet fever. But it
+took him only a brief time to realise that the passion inspired by Ora
+Blake was so much deeper and more various than the blind subservience
+to Nature that had driven him to Ida (who had not the least idea of
+being a tool of Nature herself) that it was far more dangerous than
+the first inevitable attack of youthful madness could ever be. It
+humiliated his pride to have been the mere victim of the race, the
+rudimentary male swept into matrimony by the first woman who combined
+superlative femaleness with virtue. Then he wondered if he could have
+loved Ora at that time; he certainly felt ten years older today.
+The word love brought him to his senses. It was formidable and
+definite. While he had believed himself to be in the throes of a second
+fever caught from a beautiful woman’s concordant magnetism, he had felt
+merely disgusted at his weakness, not in the least disloyal to his
+closest friend, whom he knew no woman could tempt him to betray. But he
+realised with hideous abruptness that if he were thrown with Ora Blake
+for any length of time she would become so necessary to him through
+the comprehensive appeal, which he only half understood, that he no
+more could pluck her out of him by the roots, as men disposed of the
+superficial passion when it became inconvenient, than he could tear the
+veins out of his hill with his hands.
+He had felt the danger dimly when with her, although he had made up his
+mind even then to get her out of Montana as quickly as possible. He
+vowed anew, with the first sensation of panic he had ever experienced,
+that the same sky should not cover them a week hence. He knew his
+influence over Mark Blake.
+Then he made a deliberate attempt to banish the subject from his mind,
+ordering his thoughts to their favorite haunts underground. But one
+little insidious tract, so difficult to control in all brains still
+young and human, showed a disposition to create startling and vivid
+pictures, to dream intensely, to cast up this woman’s face, fling it
+into his consciousness, with an automatic regularity that was like a
+diabolical challenge to his haughty will.
+He endeavoured to think of Ora with contempt: she had married a good
+fellow, but one whom she must have been compelled by the circumstances
+of her life to regard as her social inferior, and who assuredly was
+in no sense suited to her--merely from a parasitic dread of poverty.
+Other women went to work, even if delicately nurtured. But he was
+too masculine and too little influenced by certain phases of modern
+thought to condemn any woman long for turning to man in her extremity.
+Privately he detested women that “did things”; better for them all to
+give some man the right to protect them: marriage with a good fellow
+like Mark Blake, even without love, spoilt them far less than mixing
+up with the world in a scramble for bread. It would have spoilt Ora,
+who was now merely undeveloped; hardened, sharpened, coarsened her.
+He dismissed his abortive attempt to despise her; also a dangerous
+tendency to pity her.
+Before he finished his tramp he had recaptured his poise. What a woman
+like Ora Blake might have to give him he dared not think of, nor would
+he be betrayed again into speculation. Doubtless it was all rubbish
+anyway, merely another trick of the insatiable mating instinct. If
+it were more--the primal instinct plus the almost equally insistent
+demands of the civilised inheritances in the brain--so much the worse,
+the more reason to “cut it out.” But when he returned to the cottage in
+East Granite Street he threw himself on the divan in the parlour and
+slept there.
+XXII
+Therefore was he in no mood to fight another temptation; rather to
+take a sardonic pleasure in succumbing. An hour later, in overalls,
+and assisted by two of his labourers, outwardly more excited than
+he, for they had worked underground and vowed they smelt ore, he was
+running an open cut along the line of the float. As there was no
+outcropping it was mere guesswork; it might be weeks before he struck
+any definite sign of an ore body, but he was prepared to level the hill
+if necessary. Until he did come upon indications that would justify
+the expense, however, he was resolved not to sink a shaft nor drive a
+tunnel.
+They used pick and shovel until at the depth of eight feet they struck
+rock. Gregory had been prepared for this and sent the unwilling but
+interested Oakley into Pony for drills and powder. For two days more
+they drilled and blasted; then--Gregory took out his watch and noted
+the hour, twenty-three minutes after four--one of the men gave a shout
+and tossed a fragment into the air.
+“Stringer, by jinks!” he cried. “And it’s copper carbonate or I’m a
+dead ’un.”
+Gregory frowned, but laid the bit of ore gently on his palm and
+regarded it with awe. He wanted gold, but at least this was his,
+and the first of his treasure to be torn from its sanctuary. For a
+moment the merely personal longing was lost in the enthusiasm of the
+geologist, for the fragment in his hand was very beautiful, a soft rich
+shaded green flecked with red; the vugs, or little cells, looked as if
+lined with deep green velvet.
+But he turned and stared at the mining camp beyond his boundary line.
+One of the bits of float he had found last year had been gold quartz.
+Had it travelled, a mere chip, from the original body to this distant
+point, or danced here on the shoulders of an earthquake? Float, even
+under a layer of soil was often found so far from the ore body, that
+it was a more fallible guide than a prospector’s guess. He walked to
+the end of the hill, while his miners shrugged their shoulders and
+resumed the drilling.
+The great vein of the Primo mine was dipping acutely to the right.
+Might it not be wise for him to abandon his present position and sink a
+shaft close to the line, trusting to his practical knowledge and highly
+organized faculty to strike the vein?
+He stood for half an hour debating the question, listening to the
+intermittent roar of the engine, the rattle of ore dumped from the
+buckets. Then he walked back to the red gash in his own land. It would
+be the bitterest disappointment of his life if he failed to find gold
+in his hill, but the dominant voice in his brain was always practical,
+and it advised him to follow the willing metal for the present instead
+of incurring the expense of a shaft and possible litigation.
+“’Nother stringer!” announced one of the men, as Gregory arrived at the
+long deep cut. “Guess it’s time for a windlass.”
+“Guess it is. Go down to the house and get some lumber.”
+He descended into the cut and looked at the unmistakable evidence of
+little veins. Were they really stringer, tentacles of a great ore
+body climbing toward the surface, or a mere series of independent and
+insignificant veins not worth exploiting? He was in a pessimistic mood,
+but laughed suddenly as he realised how disappointed he would be should
+further excavation demonstrate there was no chamber of copper ore below.
+Four hours later the windlass was finished and four men were at work.
+At the end of the fortnight the windlass had been discarded in favor
+of a gasoline hoist, and twenty-five men in three shifts were employed
+upon a chamber of copper carbonate ore. The nearest of the De Smet
+hills began to take on the appearance of a mining camp; a mess-house
+and a number of cabins were building. Trees were falling, not only to
+make room for the new “town” but to timber the mine when the time came
+to sink or drift. At present those of the miners that could not be
+housed by the disgusted Oakley occupied tents or rude shacks. Oakley
+spent the greater part of his time escorting the great six-horse
+teams from the ranch to the public road, as their drivers showed an
+indifference to his precious crops only rivalled by Gregory Compton’s.
+Mark took a week’s vacation after the first carload of ore had been
+shipped from Pony to the sampling works in Butte and netted $65 a ton.
+Gregory, who was working with his men, far too impatient and surcharged
+with energy to walk about as mere manager, paid scant attention to him
+during the day; but Mark was content to sit on the edge of the cut and
+smoke and calculate, merely retreating in haste when the men lit the
+fuses.
+On the third morning, as he was approaching the mine at dawn with
+his host, Gregory suddenly announced his intention of sending for a
+manager; he purposed to sink a shaft on the edge of the chamber in
+order to determine if the present lode was the top of a vein.
+“Better take off your coat and go to work,” he added. “Do you good.
+You’re getting too fat.”
+“Getting? Thanks. But I don’t mind. You’ve got several hundred thousand
+dollars in that chamber by the looks of things, but I suppose that
+wouldn’t satisfy you?”
+“Lord, no. That is merely the necessary capital to mine the entire
+hill--or fight the powers that be when they get on to the fact that
+I’ve got another Anaconda.”
+“Do you believe it? Big pockets have been found in solitary splendor
+before this.”
+“This hill is mineral from end to end,” said Gregory with intense
+conviction. “And I want to get to the main lode as quickly as possible.”
+“By the way,” said Mark abruptly, “why don’t you locate your claim?”
+“Locate? Why, the land’s mine. Patent is all right My father even
+patented several placer claims----”
+“Mining laws are fearful and wonderful things. Judges, with a fat
+roll in their pockets, have been known to make fearful and wonderful
+interpretations before this. If you’ve struck a new copper belt--well,
+the enemy has billions. Better stake off the entire hill, and apply for
+patents. You may be grey before you get them, but the application is
+enough----”
+“It would cost a lot of money, and I don’t like the idea of paying
+twice over. This is costing thousands----”
+“And you’ll soon be taking out thousands a week. But if you need it all
+I’ll lend you the money. It would be a good investment for Ora. You can
+pay me four per cent. I’ve a mind to go ahead today and begin staking
+off.”
+Gregory stood still with his head inclined at the angle which indicated
+that he was concentrating his mind. “Very well,” he said curtly. “Go
+ahead. And I don’t need your money. Stake off every inch of the hill
+and have a good map made. See that the side lines are flush with the
+boundary. Of course I’d never have any trouble with you, but Mrs. Blake
+might take it into her head to sell. Get out a surveyor when you’re
+ready for him. Don’t bother me until the thing is done.”
+Mark took a longer vacation and worked off some twenty pounds. He
+wished ruefully that Ora would return suddenly, for he doubted that
+his love of good living would undo the excellent work when he was once
+more in Butte. He employed a U. S. deputy mineral surveyor, the map was
+made, Gregory applied for his patents; the lawyers’s mind was at rest
+for the present, although he kept his ears open in Butte.
+Gregory sank his shaft ostensibly to determine the dip and width of the
+vein leading from the chamber, but secretly with the hope of meeting
+the body of ore already uncovered in the Primo Mine. He was elated with
+his splendid “find” and sudden wealth, but his old dream never left him
+for a moment. Indeed he would have been more than willing to miss the
+pyroxenite if he could come upon a lode of quartz containing free gold.
+That was what he had visualised all his life. He wanted to stand in his
+own stopes and flash his lantern along glittering seams, not merely
+send masses of decomposed grey-black ore to the sampling works and
+await returns. If he found a vein worth the outlay he would erect his
+own stamp mill and listen to its music. Such is the deathless boy that
+exists in all men. Mere wealth meant far less to him than the beautiful
+costly toy to play with for a while.
+The shaft at the end of a month had gone down eighty feet; but
+had revealed only a lean vein of copper carbonates which made him
+forget his dreams in the fear that his mine was pinching out. But he
+persisted, and one morning when he went to the bottom of the shaft
+after the smoke of the blast had cleared away, and lit his candle,
+he picked up a lump of yellow ore that glittered like quartz packed
+with free gold. For a moment his head swam. He knelt down and brushed
+the shattered rock from several other bits of what looked like virgin
+gold; and he caressed them as gently as if they had been the cheek of
+his first born. But he was a geologist. He stepped into the ascending
+bucket a prey to misgivings. As soon as he examined his treasure in the
+sunlight he knew it at once for chalcopyrite--the great copper ore of
+the sulphide zone.
+After he had assayed it he philosophically dismissed regret. It ran
+$26 in copper with slight values of gold and silver. Chalcopyrite ore,
+as a rule, runs about five per cent. in copper, its commercial value
+lying in the immense quantities in which it may be found, although it
+is necessary to concentrate at the mine. If he had struck one of the
+rare veins of massive chalcopyrite, averaging $25 a ton, he would take
+out, after it was sufficiently developed, several thousand dollars a
+day; and, like the carbonates, it could go straight to the smelter. As
+a matter of fact the vein when uncovered proved to be six feet wide
+and grew slightly broader with depth. The miners were jubilant over
+their “fool’s gold”, and a number of people came out and asked for the
+privilege of looking at what the foreman, Joshua Mann, declared to be
+the prettiest pay streak in Montana.
+Gregory found his chalcopyrite during the third month after he began to
+investigate the hill. The chamber already had netted him over a hundred
+thousand dollars and grew richer with depth. He put an extra force at
+work on the promising shoot.
+In the Primo Mine the luck varied. The two engineers, Osborne and
+Douglas, exhausted the first lode, struck a poor vein, averaging ten
+dollars a ton, then ran into a body of the ore netting as high as four
+hundred dollars. Two months later they came up suddenly against a wall
+of country rock. Undaunted, they drove through the mass, and struck a
+lean shoot of chalcopyrite.
+XXIII
+“Well, what do you know about that?”
+Mark’s feet were on the table in the cabin Gregory had had built for
+himself on the top of the hill. The news had just been brought to them
+by one of the men who had a faithful friend in the Primo Mine.
+Gregory was engaged in biting a cigar to pieces. He waited some ten
+minutes before replying, during which Mark smoked philosophically.
+“I think this,” he said finally, “what those fellows are after
+is gold, not copper. Better suggest to them to get out an expert
+geologist--Holmes is a good friend of mine--who will tell them to sink
+a shaft over on the right, or run a drift from the original stope. All
+we need is time.”
+“I’m on. But will they do it? They’re not fools and what they’re after
+mainly is cash.”
+“I think they’ll listen to reason. They’re not far from the boundary
+line and there’s no possible doubt that the vein apexes here. The
+moment they cross the line I’ll get out an injunction. That would stop
+them anyhow, hold them up until their lease had expired. And their
+chance is good to recover the vein on the other side. No doubt it has
+faulted. Have you noticed those aspens about a hundred yards beyond
+their shaft? Where there are aspens there is water. Now as there is no
+water in sight it must be below the surface, and that would indicate
+faulting. There might be no ore on the other side, but the chance is
+worth taking. Better have a talk with Osborne tomorrow. He’s the least
+mulish of the two.”
+“Good. I might offer them some inducement--give them an extra month or
+two. Even so we’d win out. But they’re not the only danger ahead. How
+long since you’ve been in Butte?”
+“Not since I began work.”
+“Well, let me tell you that Amalgamated is buzzing. They’ve got on to
+the fact good and plenty that you’ve got the biggest thing in copper
+that has been struck in Montana for twenty years. Of course they get
+figures regularly from the sampling works. They know you’ve already
+taken out half a million dollars worth of ore--net--and that the new
+shoot is getting richer every minute. They’re talking loud about
+spoiling the market and all the rest of it. Of course that’s rank
+nonsense. What worries them is a rival in Montana. If your mine was in
+Colorado or Michigan they wouldn’t care shucks. You haven’t taken out
+enough yet to worry them about the market. But if they can queer your
+game they’ll do it. Lucky for you the smelting works need copper just
+now as badly as you need them. If it were not for that strike in the
+Stemwinder and the Corkscrew you might be having trouble.”
+Gregory smiled, but as he set his jaw at the same time it was not an
+agreeable smile. “I’m in a mood to fight somebody--and win. I wanted
+gold and didn’t get it. A row with Amalgamated would relieve my
+feelings--although I’d rather use my fists.”
+“They’re mad, too, because you’ve named your mine ‘Perch of the Devil.’
+That’s the old name for Butte, and they look upon it as a direct
+challenge.”
+“So it is. And you don’t suppose I’d call my mine Limestone Hill, do
+you? I shouldn’t get half the fun out of it. What the devil can they
+do, anyhow?”
+“That’s what I’m worrying about. You never know what Amalgamated has
+up its sleeve. There was just one man who was too much for them--for
+a while--and that was Heinze. And they got him in the end. I believe
+you’d give them a run for their money, and I don’t rank you second to
+Heinze or any other man when it comes to brains or resource. But--well,
+they’ve got billions--and the best legal talent in the state.”
+“You deserve a return compliment. You may consider yourself counsel for
+Perch of the Devil Mine.”
+“Jimminy! But I’d like a chance at them.” Mark’s cigar was burning his
+fingers but he only felt the fire in his brain. “Do you mean it?”
+“Who else? Watch them. Put spies on them. Fight them with their own
+weapons. They’ve spies among my miners. That doesn’t worry me a bit.
+I merely mention it. Let’s change the subject. I’ve got to sleep
+tonight. What’s the news from Europe?”
+“I’ve got Ora’s last letter here; want to hear it?”
+“Good Lord, no. Tell me what they are doing. I sent Ida five thousand
+dollars a few days ago, so I suppose they’re flying high. She cabled
+her thanks and said they were both well.”
+“Don’t you really know what they’ve been doing?”
+“Not a thing.”
+“Well--let’s see. They went over in June. They did France, Germany--lot
+of places in regulation tourist style--incidentally met several of
+Mrs. Stratton’s old friends. Then they went back to Paris, where they
+appear to have indulged in an orgy of clothes preparatory to a round of
+country house visits on the Continent and in England. Ora writes with
+great enthusiasm of--er--Ida’s improvement. Says you’d think she’d been
+on top all her life, especially since she got those Paris duds, and met
+a lot of smart people; makes a hit with everybody, and will astonish
+Butte when she comes back.”
+“That will please her!” He felt no glow of tenderness, but some
+satisfaction that he could gratify the ambitions of the woman he had
+married. He was still too keen on his own youthful dreams, and thankful
+at their partial fulfillment, not to sympathise with those of others.
+Mark left him to accept the more commodious hospitality of Oakley, and
+Gregory sat for another hour smoking, hoping for the mood of sleep. But
+the news had excited him, and he preferred to sit up rather than to
+toss about his narrow bed. The last part of the conversation, however,
+had given a new turn to his thoughts. Suddenly, unbidden, Ora flashed
+into his mind and refused to be dislodged. He walked up and down,
+striving to banish her as he had done before, when, sleepless, she had
+peremptorily demanded his attention. Tonight she was almost a visible
+presence in the little room.
+He sat down again and grimly permitted his mind to dwell upon his long
+communion with her on the steps of the School of Mines. He tried to
+analyse his impulse to take her there. Unconventional as he was it had
+never occurred to him to do such a thing before, and there were twenty
+women in the room whom he would have expected to exercise a more potent
+fascination had he been in the humour for a flirtation. He had been
+quite honest in telling Ora that he had taken her out merely to look at
+her under the stars, and in intimating that to make love to her was the
+last thing in his mind. She had hardly seemed a woman at all there in
+the ballroom or when he first sat at her feet; his mind was relaxed and
+the “queer” romantic or poetical streak that he often deprecated had
+taken possession of it; if he had had a suspicion of anything more he
+would have fled from her at once, for she was the wife of his friend.
+As it was he merely had dismissed Mark from his mind and tried the
+experiment of setting a bit of exquisite white poetry to the music of
+the stars....
+As often as her memory had assailed him he had longed to rehearse that
+scene; the conversation, desultory and personal; her white profile
+against the flaming blue sky; the intensity and brilliancy of her eyes,
+so unlooked for in her young almost colorless face; her pink mouth
+that changed its expression so often; her curious magnetism, so unlike
+that of the full-blooded woman--all of that and something more; the
+strange community of mind--or soul?--that had drawn him on to pour
+out his secret self into another self of whose contact he was almost
+literally sensible,--in a sudden desire for comprehension that had been
+like the birth of a new star in his mental constellation. He had felt
+the thrill of her sympathy, her understanding, then another thrill of
+perplexity, fear; then the little quarrel, when he had thought her more
+adorable than ever, and no longer bearing the least resemblance to a
+star-wraith, but wholly feminine. When he left her it was with the
+confused sense that he had sojourned for a bit with the quintessence of
+womanhood whom Nature had cast in a new and perilous mould.
+He went over the hour again and again, hoping to bore himself, to
+arrive at the conclusion that it had been a mere commonplace flirtation
+with a coquette who was as cold as she looked. But he found the
+recaptured scene very sweet. The power of concentration he possessed
+enabled him to shut out the little room and sit at the feet of the
+woman whose magic personality had penetrated the barriers he so
+jealously had built about his soul and given him the first sense of
+companionship he had ever known.
+He was filled with a longing that shook him and hurt him, to feel that
+sense of sympathetic companionship, of spiritual contact, again. And
+far more. He knew that she had loved no man, that all the glory and
+the riches within her were waiting--and if she had waited, and he had
+waited, and they had met unfettered that night----
+He sprang to his feet. His face in the smoky light looked black.
+“God!” he muttered. “God! Have I fallen as low as that? If ever I think
+of her again I’ll cut my heart out. I hope to God the Amalgamated puts
+up the hell of a fight. What I want is a man’s work in the world, not a
+play actor’s.”
+XXIV
+A week later, Gregory, who was down in the bottom of the shaft,
+received a message by way of a descending miner that a gentleman from
+Butte, one Mr. John Robinson, requested the favour of an interview, and
+awaited him in the cabin on the top of the hill. At least such is the
+polite translation of the message as delivered: “Say, Boss, there’s a
+guy upstairs in your shack what says he’s from Butte, and’s come out to
+have a chin with you--some important. Says his name is John Robinson.”
+Gregory swore under his breath and for a minute his face looked ugly
+and formidable. But as he stepped into the bucket and gave the signal
+he permitted his expression to change to one of grim amusement.
+Mr. Robinson was one of the brilliant galaxy that guided the legal
+footsteps of “Amalgamated”; that powerful company, financed by Standard
+Oil, which owned thirty-one of the mines of Butte openly, and exerted a
+power in Montana far exceeding that of state or nation.
+Gregory wore corduroy trousers and coat, and these as well as his face
+and hands were white with “muck”, a mixture of rock-dust and water
+which spattered everyone in the vicinity of the ore drills; but he
+wasted no time to clean up before climbing to his cabin to meet the
+ambassador from Amalgamated.
+Mr. Robinson, a portly gentleman, still young, but manifestly the
+victim of easy fortune, rose from his chair before the stove and
+greeted his host with beaming smile and extended hand.
+“My dear Mr. Compton!” he exclaimed. “It is a great pleasure to meet
+you again. Of course you have forgotten me for I was two grades above
+you in the High, when you were a little chap----”
+“What have you come here for? Out with it! I’ve no time to waste. Sit
+down if you like.”
+Mr. Robinson colored angrily. He knew little of the man with whom he
+had come to deal, but had always relied upon his urbanity and Western
+heartiness to “make a hit.” He knew Mark Blake and, although he had
+heard, like others, of Gregory Compton’s record at the School of Mines,
+he had assumed that he was a mere student, and in other respects more
+or less the same sort of man as his chum. This man looked unlike any he
+had ever met. He concealed his chagrin, however, and resumed his seat.
+“Really, Mr. Compton, you are somewhat abrupt----”
+“Get down to business. What does Amalgamated want?”
+Mr. Robinson wisely took the cue.
+“To buy you out.”
+“How much will they pay?”
+“How much do you want?”
+“What do they offer?”
+“Well, between you and me. I fancy they might go as high as a hundred
+thousand.”
+“Tell them to go to hell.”
+“How much do you want?”
+“A hundred millions.”
+“Good God, man, are you mad!”
+“If you had permitted me to finish. I should have added--in other
+words, nothing. There isn’t money enough inside of Montana, let alone
+on top, to buy one acre of this ranch.”
+“But--you know what most mines are--pockety--yours may peter out any
+minute.”
+“All right. I take the chances.”
+“The history of Butte Hill is unique. There will never be another----”
+“How do you know?”
+“It stands to reason----”
+“Why?”
+“Oh, Lord, man, if you are indulging in wild dreams----!”
+“My dreams concern no one but myself. I’m satisfied with my hill and
+that’s all there is to it.”
+“I’m afraid not. Look here, you are a fine young fellow with a
+big future--people talk a lot about you--I don’t want to see you
+crushed----”
+“You won’t.”
+“I’m not here to make threats, but you are not so--ah--unsophisticated
+as to imagine that if Amalgamated sets out to get rid of you, you can
+stand up against them?”
+“They can’t do a damned thing and you know it. They might have a few
+years ago, when a roll could be passed on the street to a judge who was
+to deny or grant an injunction within a few hours, and at a time when
+there was no prospect of the referendum and recall; when the people of
+Montana took the buying and selling of men in the legislature as part
+of the game, all in the day’s work. But Montana has caught the reform
+spirit that has been sweeping over the rest of the country, and she
+is also getting pretty sick of corporation power. Now, sir, not only
+have I a clear title to this ranch, but I’ve staked off the entire hill
+and applied for patents. If Amalgamated freezes me out of Anaconda and
+Great Falls, I’ll promote a company and put up a plant of my own. With
+nearly a million dollars in sight besides what I’ve taken out, you can
+figure, yourself, how much trouble I’d have in New York getting all the
+money I wanted. Amalgamated knows that, and my ore will continue to be
+smelted in Anaconda. Of course if I were within a mile or so of Butte I
+might be in some danger. They’d bore through and then claim that my ore
+vein apexed in one of their properties. But I’m too far away for that.”
+Gregory saw the other man’s eyes flash wide open before they were
+hastily lowered. Mr. Robinson regarded the point of his cigar.
+“Ah, yes,” he said. “That’s all very true. Luck is with you in a
+measure, but--well, take my advice and don’t fight Amalgamated. They
+have in their employ some of the most resourceful brains in the
+country--that are always on the job. Heinze taught them a lesson
+they’ll never forget.”
+“Let’s drop the subject.” Gregory rose and opened a cupboard. “Have
+something?”
+He poured whiskey into two glasses. The men smiled as they drank,
+Gregory sardonically, Mr. Robinson ruefully but with thoughtful eyes.
+He had what Ida called the quick-rich face, large and round and fat,
+and it was an admirable mask.
+“Like to see the mine?” asked Gregory.
+“Why, yes--do you mean it?”
+“Why not? If it had any secrets your spies would have turned them over
+before this. Glad to show it to you.”
+They went to the shafthead and descended in one of the buckets.
+“How far down have you gone?” asked Mr. Robinson, with an air of polite
+interest.
+“We found chalcopyrite at one hundred and ten feet, after a narrow vein
+leading from the chamber near the surface, and are stoping.”
+As they left the bucket they were greeted by the cheerful rhythmical
+sound of hammers on the drills, and by the light of the miners’ candles
+they saw the men working at different points of the dark chamber, two
+on a scaffolding above.
+“Great waste of labor,” said Gregory. “I shall install a compressor
+before long as well as electric lighting. Of course it is only the
+beginning of a mine.”
+He saw the ambassador from Amalgamated smile, and turned on his heel.
+“They’ll be loading the holes in a minute,” he said. “And I’d like to
+show you the upper chamber.”
+When they reached the surface Mr. Robinson declined to go down into the
+excavation, but stood on the edge watching the busy hive below. “Great
+sight,” he said admiringly. “How deep have you gone?”
+“About seventy-eight feet.”
+“And the end not in sight!”
+“Not yet, but of course it’s only a chamber.”
+“You’ve taken out close on half a million here alone.”
+“Pretty near. What the devil made you suppose I’d take a paltry hundred
+thousand for the hill?”
+“Oh, just to avoid trouble. You have the reputation of being a very
+clever man.”
+“Thanks. It’s cold standing round. Wouldn’t you like to take a walk?
+How’d you like to see the Primo Mine?”
+As Gregory, who was watching him intently, anticipated, the man’s face
+lit up. “I should like it!” he said definitely. “I hear that they too
+have struck chalcopyrite. Lost their gold vein.”
+“They’re nosing after it in another direction. When the lease is up I
+shall consolidate with the Blakes.”
+“Quite natural. Of course it’s the same vein?--the chalcopyrite, I
+mean.”
+“Unquestionably. And it apexes in my property.”
+“Are you so sure of that?”
+“Not a doubt in the world. I struck the top of the vein twelve feet
+below the surface. But it will never go to the courts.”
+“Of course not.”
+Gregory, who looked remote, almost blank, lost not an intonation of the
+other man’s voice, nor a flickering gleam in his cunning eyes. His own
+head was a little on one side, which, had Mr. Robinson had the good
+fortune to know him better, would have warned him that the young man
+for whom he had conceived a certain respect was thinking hard and to
+some purpose.
+Douglas, who had a personal liking for his neighbor, unaware that he
+had been the chief instrument in the upsetting of skillful plans for
+untold wealth, readily gave permission to visit the mine as soon as
+the smoke from a recent blast would permit. Gregory and Mr. Robinson
+walked about to keep warm, the former pointing out the probability of a
+faulted ore vein under the aspens, and enlarging upon the great fortune
+bound to be Mrs. Blake’s in any case. Then as the man merely remarked,
+“Yes, charming woman, Mrs. Blake; thought the night of the Prom she
+was one of the prettiest women I ever saw. No dead easy game there”;
+Gregory refrained from kicking him and said innocently.
+“Good thing the law compels creditors to present their claims within
+a limited time, or Amalgamated might grab this mine and bore through
+to my hill. I understand Judge Stratton was heavily in debt to the
+Anaconda Company when he died.”
+Mr. Robinson’s face turned a deep brick-red, and he shot a piercing
+glance into the narrow noncommittal eyes opposite.
+“Of course--it’s too late for that, but--Oh, well----” He broke off
+abruptly and walked toward the shaft as Osborne beckoned. Gregory stood
+a moment, his head bent forward. He had experienced the sensation
+of coming into contact with an electrical wave. But he was smiling
+pleasantly as he joined his guest at the shaft house.
+After the visit to the mine, during which he amiably pointed out the
+dip of the vein toward his own property, and Mr. Robinson succumbed to
+the charm which never missed fire when Gregory chose to exert it, they
+walked back to the ranch, where a team awaited the ambassador at the
+foot of the hill.
+“I’ve had quite a delightful visit,” began Mr. Robinson, when Gregory
+interrupted:
+“I’ve no intention of letting you go. You must have supper at the farm
+and meet Oakley. I’ll send off the rig and drive you in myself----”
+“Oh, I couldn’t think of troubling you----” Robinson, red again, stood
+in almost agitated embarrassment.
+“No train to Butte till nine-thirty. You don’t want to spend four hours
+in Pony?”
+“The fact is----” But whatever he had on his mind died on his lips.
+He looked sharply into the bland smiling eyes opposite, and concluded
+abruptly, “All right. Many thanks. Glad of the chance to know you
+better.”
+He paid off the driver of the team and they walked toward the ranch
+house, Gregory commenting on Oakley’s genius for dry farming, and
+expatiating upon the excellence of the crops. Mining was not mentioned
+again during the evening and the lawyer enjoyed an excellent supper.
+Gregory drove him to Pony, and clung to him so closely that he had no
+opportunity to visit the telegraph office or a telephone booth. They
+shook hands cordially as the train moved off. When it was out of sight
+Gregory sent a telegram to Mark telling him to take the first train
+next morning for Virginia City and meet him in the Court House. He
+took his car to a garage and spent the night in Pony. On the following
+morning at nine o’clock he walked into the Tax Collector’s office at
+the County Seat.
+XXV
+The County Treasurer, who had just come in, looked blank for a moment,
+then greeted his visitor with effusive cordiality.
+“Always glad to see you, Mr. Compton. It does a poor clerk’s heart good
+just to look at a man who’s such a favourite of fortune. Sit down, sir.”
+“I will. I’ve a good deal to say.”
+“Staked off the rest of your ranch? It’ll be some little time yet
+before you get those patents through you’ve applied for already----”
+“What do the taxes foot up on the Oro Fino Primo Mine?”
+“Ah--What?” The man’s face turned scarlet, then white. He was a young
+man, clerically able, but otherwise insignificant. “Why----” Then he
+became voluble.
+“The Primo mine, over there near your place? It’s a new claim, isn’t
+it? Never heard of it before those fellows from New York sank a
+shaft and struck it rich. Why should there be any taxes before the
+regular----”
+“You know as well as I do that Judge Stratton patented that mine and
+did the necessary amount of development work, then found it salted and
+abandoned it. That was twenty-eight years ago. He forgot it, and so,
+apparently, did this office. It was regarded as an abandoned prospect
+hole, if anyone thought about it at all. I haven’t discussed the matter
+with Mr. Blake, but assume that he’s merely been waiting for his bill.
+Now, for reasons of my own, I’ve telegraphed him to meet me here this
+morning, but in case he can’t come I’m prepared to pay the amount
+myself. How much?” and he took out his checque book.
+The treasurer looked as if the cane seat of his chair had turned to hot
+coals. “Really--that is a large order, Mr. Compton. Twenty-eight years.
+It will take time to go over the records.”
+“I’m prepared to wait all day if necessary.”
+“But why this haste?”
+“I have my reasons. They don’t concern you in the least. Do they?”
+“Why--no--but I am very busy----”
+“Then put someone else on the job. I assume that the county is not
+averse to raking in a tidy little sum in a hurry.”
+“Really----”
+Gregory leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly.
+“You had a telephone from Mr. John Robinson this morning.”
+This time the man started visibly, but he made an effort to control
+himself. “I have just come in----”
+“He telephoned to you last night, did he not? What did he offer you to
+permit him to pay those taxes today?”
+“I will not be insulted, sir.” The man’s voice was almost a scream.
+He heartily wished he had been in training a few years longer, a
+graduate of the famous Heinze-Amalgamated orgy of corruption, or of the
+Clark-Daly epoch, when nearly every man in office had been bribed or
+hoped to be. “I never heard of Mr. Robinson!”
+“Of course he reminded you that as the taxes are long delinquent the
+county has the right to put the property up at public auction, and that
+in any case Mrs. Blake would hardly be given the usual year in which to
+redeem it. But why auction when the money is ready to be paid over at
+once? How much did he offer you?”
+“I repeat----”
+“I think I can guess. It was five thousand dollars. I’ll make it ten.
+Get to work.”
+The man, in whom excitement had destroyed his appetite for breakfast,
+and who had started out in life with the usual negative ideals of
+honesty, burst into tears. “My God!” he sobbed. “I’ve heard of the
+third degree. Your eyes bore a hole through one. They hurt, I say. To
+think that you should come in here and accuse me of taking bribes.”
+“Oh, hell, cut it out. Montana may be a great state, but she has her
+rotten spot like any other. She’s been so debauched the last twenty
+years by open bribery that I doubt if you could lay your hand on a
+hundred men in her that haven’t had a roll anywhere from five hundred
+to twenty thousand dollars passed to them, and pocketed it. Estimable
+citizens, too, but a man never knows his weak spot until he has a wad
+of easy money thrust under his nose--or flung over his transom. You are
+no worse than the rest. Do you take my offer?”
+The County Treasurer recovered himself with amazing alacrity. Ten
+thousand dollars in a lump never had haunted his wildest dreams.
+“All right, sir. It’s a bargain. But I want bills. No checks for me.”
+“I congratulate you on your foresight! But there have been times in
+this state when checque books were not opened for months. You shall
+have it in bills. Where are the records?”
+“In the vault there.”
+“I’ll sit here. If you attempt to leave the room to go to a telephone
+I’ll drag you out on the Court House steps and tell the story to the
+town. Now get to work.”
+“I’ll keep my word, sir, and I know you’ll keep yours.” He went into
+the vault and appeared later trundling out a pile of records, then sat
+down at a table and concentrated his mind as earnestly as if corruption
+had never blighted it. Gregory watched him until Mark entered. Then the
+two men went out into the corridor, standing where they could see the
+table. Gregory recounted his interview with Mr. John Robinson, and the
+present sequel.
+Mark listened with his mouth open, an expression of profound chagrin
+loosening the muscles of his cheerful healthy shrewd face.
+“By George!” he cried. “And to think that was the one thing I never
+thought of. Of course I knew about the delinquent taxes, and intended
+to pay them when I was good and ready; but what’s the use of forking
+over till you have to? But not to have thought of this! And I pride
+myself upon sleeping with one eye open--never was caught napping yet!”
+And for five minutes he exploited his vocabulary of profanity, heaping
+each epithet upon his own humiliated head.
+Gregory laughed. “Merely another proof that two heads are better than
+one. Do you stand for the ten thousand? If not I’ll pay half.”
+“I’d pay fifty----”
+“I’ll pay half,” said Gregory definitely. “It means as much to me as to
+you.”
+“All right. Jimminy, but they’re clever!” He was calmer and his astute
+legal brain was moved to admiration. “But you are cleverer. I’ve always
+sworn by you. They’ll get a jolt all right. How did you catch on,
+anyhow?”
+“I fancy I got a wireless. The other man was thinking hard and so was
+I--had practically nothing else in our minds. Those things will be
+better explained some day. Perhaps it was merely a good guess.”
+“You hit the nail on the head all right. I’ll have a letter to write to
+Ora next Sunday! She’s had a narrow squeak, and she shall know whom to
+thank for it.”
+“Oh, cut that out.”
+Gregory went to the bank and drew the ten thousand dollars, while
+Mark kept watch. When the bill was finally made out, Mark examined it
+critically, and then gave his personal checque. Three months later the
+County Treasurer resigned his office on the ground of ill health and
+bought an orange grove in Southern California. There he and his growing
+family enjoy a respected, prosperous, bucolic life.
+XXVI
+Gregory had scored against the most powerful combination of capital in
+the world. He knew that they knew he had scored, for he had met Mr.
+John Robinson as he descended the Court House steps with the husband
+of the delinquent taxpayer, and he felt reasonably elated. But the
+keenest and canniest brains are not infallible, and he underestimated
+the resources of his mighty and now open enemy. Three mornings later,
+while he was still asleep, Joshua Mann, the miner in his confidence and
+devoted to his interests, burst into the cabin and shook him.
+“There’s the devil to pay, sir,” he cried. “Amalgamated has staked off
+a claim between our boundary line and Primo.”
+Gregory sat up in bed. He never awakened dazed, but with every faculty
+alert. “What are you talking about? The Primo claim almost overlaps the
+ranch.”
+“So anyone would think. But it doesn’t. That’s the point. Of course
+the old stakes of the Primo rotted long ago. They must have got hold
+of the original map. But there it is: a bit of unclaimed land between
+Primo and the ranch. There isn’t much more than room to sink a shaft,
+but there is, all right. Guess they’ve got us on the hip.” And having
+delivered his news he relieved his mind with profanity, of which he too
+had a choice assortment.
+Gregory flung on his clothes and accompanied by Mann walked hastily to
+the edge of the hill. There, sure enough, were the four posts and the
+flaunting notice of a located claim.
+“Must have done it between shifts last night,” commented the miner.
+“Didn’t take long and the moon helped. By jing!--if I’d been round with
+a shotgun! Well, there’ll be fun underground sames on top. The moment
+they break through we’ll be ready for ’em. They may get there but they
+won’t stay long. The boys will like the fun; and we’d put our last
+cent on you--know a winner when we see one.”
+“Put on an extra force and make them work like hell. _We must get here
+first._ When I’m not below you’re boss.”
+“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep ’em on the job, all right.”
+“Promise them extra pay. Come up to me at eight o’clock tonight and
+we’ll talk it over.”
+He went back to the cabin and telephoned to Mark to come out at
+once. The lawyer arrived in the course of the morning. The first ten
+minutes of the interview may be passed over. Then Mark recovered his
+equilibrium. He lit a cigar, demanded a drink, and elevated his feet to
+the table.
+“We’ll just thresh this question out, turn the spot-light on every side
+of it, present and future. We ought to have done it before, but that
+first victory was a little too heady. Nothing like a defeat to clear
+the brain. What’s the first thing they’ll do? They won’t waste time
+sinking a shaft if they can help it. That’s the hardest kind of country
+rock. They’ll try to buy up the lease from Douglas and Osborne. I
+haven’t the lease with me, but most leases carry a clause which permits
+the original lessees to sub-let. I fancy I could get out an injunction
+and delay them, however, until the lease expired. But what they can
+do, all right, is to bribe those two men to give them the use of their
+cross-cut--the one that has already struck your vein--while they were
+sinking the shaft. Do you think they’ll fall for it?”
+“My experience is that most men can be bribed if the roll is big
+enough. Osborne and Douglas are pretty discouraged, although they’ve
+begun to drift across the fault. I’ll talk to them, but they’re not
+square men. Amalgamated could pretend to be sinking a shaft against
+time itself, and be drifting for all they were worth on the Primo vein.
+I understand that Amalgamated’s head geologist has been nosing round
+for some time and has concluded there’s a parallel fissure in their
+claim and that they can ‘prove’ apex rights.”
+“How deep do you figure they’d have to sink to strike the vein at that
+point?”
+“About two hundred feet, owing to that surface bump.”
+“And it apexes here. There’s no getting round that--with a square deal.
+But they figure on proving that they’ve the main vein, and yours is
+an offshoot? The case would go to Helena--to the Federal Courts--as
+Amalgamated was incorporated out of the state. That’s bad. If the case
+could be tried in Virginia City, and there was a good healthy suspicion
+that the Judge was expecting to retire in comfort, you could apply for
+a change of venue--result of that odorous chapter in our history when
+every judge was on the pay roll of either Heinze or Amalgamated. Well,
+at least there’s public opinion to be considered; the state is waking
+up. Here is one thing we can do. If it comes to a knock-out fight and
+the case goes to Helena, we can get out an expert geologist of national
+reputation, whose record shows him to be above bribes, and who will
+be bound to testify that the vein apexes in your claim. Becke of the
+School of Mines, will find the man we want. Now, what’s your first
+move?”
+“To stope the vein as far as the boundary line, which of course is
+my side-line, and as far down as possible. If they won in the courts
+I’d have to fork over eventually, but they’d have to wait for it, and
+they’ll get a good jolt underground.”
+“You’re much too calm. What have you got up your sleeve?”
+“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing to do with
+the present case. The best thing you can do now is to make the whole
+thing public and get public opinion behind us. They don’t own all the
+newspapers in the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the
+rest of the country, either. Are you on?”
+“You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike among your
+miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular among the mining class. They
+pay good wages and treat the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say
+that much for them.”
+“I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of my miners, and
+they like me. I call every one of them by his first name, and they’re
+men--not a Bohunk among them--and like the idea, too, of a fight under
+a good captain. If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on dog, it
+might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and
+not one of them has stuck harder to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted
+to me, and has great influence over them.”
+“Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for you get your roll
+from the Smelting Works. If that went back on you----”
+“I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a friend of mine.
+He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll give headquarters a hint
+that my men, their blood being up, are as likely as not to make a
+bonfire somewhere. Get back to town and give the story to the new
+evening paper. Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of
+notoriety. See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the
+biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. I’ve got to go
+below.”
+XXVII
+The next day Gregory visited a mine in Lewis and Clark County which
+recently had shut down, and bought a compressor at second hand. His
+miners with the air drills were soon working at five times the rate
+of speed that had been possible with the hand drills. The contractor
+in charge of the development work on what was impudently known as the
+Apex Mine, had installed a gasoline hoist, every new device, and as
+large a force as it was possible at that early stage to employ with
+profit. Gregory interviewed Osborne and Douglas, and obtained profuse
+assurances, but Mann soon discovered that there was an increased force
+on the Primo copper vein. Their original lease was nearly up but they
+had accepted Mark’s offer of two months’ grace; an offer he deeply
+regretted now, but the papers were signed and sealed. They made a feint
+of pushing the drift across the fault, but as they employed a small
+force at that point there was little room for doubt that they had been
+amply compensated for a doubtful undertaking.
+Meanwhile work on the great surface chamber of Perch of the Devil
+Mine was drawing to a close. It had proved to be a hundred feet long,
+thirty feet wide, and seventy feet deep, and had netted half a million
+dollars. Some time since one of the larger houses on the West Side in
+Butte, built by a millionaire while still faithful to Montana, but
+whose family now spent twelve months of the year in Europe, New York,
+or California, had been thrown on the market for less than a third of
+its cost; new millionaires are not as plentiful in Amalgamated Butte
+as of old, and that unique camp is still a perch, even for those that
+make moderate fortunes; if no longer for the devil. It never will be
+a favourite roost for the gamecock’s hens and chicks. The hotels and
+“blocks” are always overcrowded, and even bungalows are in demand by
+the energetic but impermanent young engineers and managers of the
+various companies; but “palatial residences,” built by enthusiastic
+citizens who either died promptly or retired in favour of their
+families, are a drug on that great market they helped to build. When
+the Murphy house, therefore, was advertised for sale Gregory bought it
+for Ida and cabled her the news together with five thousand dollars
+Mark had recently made for him on the stock-market.
+Above these and other expenditures, he now had half a million dollars
+to his credit, but he wanted a million more. The new vein was very rich
+for chalcopyrite, but its depth was problematical, and it might drop in
+values at any moment. If his belief in his hill was justified and there
+were huge primary deposits below, there would be no end to his riches;
+but it would take a year or more to determine that point; and meanwhile
+he wanted at least a million and a half, not only to meet the possible
+expenses of litigation, but to mine at depth and to open up his other
+claims in case Amalgamated, when it reached the chalcopyrite vein,
+claimed that it apexed in their property, got out an injunction, and
+forced him to cease work on it.
+But he had another and to him a still more vital reason for wishing
+to make a great sum of money. Half a million dollars, particularly
+when spectacularly acquired, alters a man’s position in his community
+at once, and the readjustment of his own mental attitude toward life
+follows as a matter of course; particularly in a country where money
+not only talks but rules. He was now treated, when business took him
+to any of the towns, as a permanent capitalist of the great state of
+Montana; moreover, his romantic attitude toward his hill having been
+inevitably dampened by its yield of mere copper, his appreciation of
+its heavy contribution to his bank account was wholly practical. He not
+only began to forecast himself as one of the small group of front-rank
+millionaires which Montana has donated to the American Brotherhood of
+Millionaires, but to be sensible of the sudden and active growth of
+those business instincts he had always known were dormant in his brain.
+It had needed but the rousing of his fighting instinct, the success of
+its first move, and the swift countermove of the enemy, to awaken the
+permanent desire, not alone to pit his brains against Amalgamated, but
+to show the world what he could do. In short he was on his mettle, and
+conscious for the first time of his powers and ultimate ambitions.
+He had found his mine by an accident. Nature had flung it into his
+lap. He was now determined to prove that he could make money with the
+resources of his brain as rapidly as the more famous of the Montanans
+had made it in the past, when opportunities were supposed to be more
+numerous. There never was a time when opportunity did not coincide
+with the man, and of this Gregory was contemptuously aware when he
+dismissed the usual Wall Street resource as commonplace, beneath the
+consideration of a man living in a state whose resources had barely
+been tapped.
+When live brains of peculiar gifts think hard and uninterruptedly on
+a given subject they become magnets. Gregory paid frequent visits
+to Butte and Helena, talking casually with many men. In less than a
+fortnight he found his cue, and, accompanied by a civil engineer,
+disappeared for a week.
+XXVIII
+Twenty years ago it was the ambition of every Californian, no matter
+how blatant his state pride, to move to New York. Today he hopes to
+live and die in California, the main reason being that the women of
+his family find themselves members of a comparatively old and settled
+community, enjoying many advantages and no little importance; given
+frequent trips abroad they are content to remain at home in houses
+of modern architecture, and to command a social position that New
+York has granted to only two or three of California’s heiresses and
+millionaires. Montanans, at present, those that are rich or merely
+independent, are in the migratory phase of the earlier Californian; but
+as New York has extended to them an even more grudging welcome than
+it did to aspirants from the more picturesque state, they visit it,
+after successive social disappointments, merely for its dressmakers and
+those exterior advantages that may be exchanged for gold; the majority
+migrate to “The Coast,” more particularly to Southern California. There
+they not only find relief on the sea-level from an altitude that plays
+havoc with the nerves, but, in the mushroom Southern cities, social
+position may be had for the asking, and every advantage for growing
+children.
+Gregory had heard of a man named Griffiths, owner of the Circle-G
+Ranch, a tract of land covering seventy-five thousand acres, who was
+anxious to sell and move to Los Angeles. As the ranch was practically
+waterless and thirty miles from a railroad, his only chance of
+disposing of it was by means of an alluring bargain. He was willing
+to sell the ranch, his large herds of horses and cattle, and bands of
+sheep for half a million dollars.
+Gregory returned to Butte without the engineer, went directly to
+Blake’s office, and laid his programme before his astounded friend and
+legal adviser.
+He had found Griffiths a man unaccustomed to business but with his
+mind set upon retiring with a capital of half a million dollars. His
+efforts in money-making hitherto, had been confined to acquiring rather
+than disposing of property, and his trading consisted of converting
+live stock into such cash as was necessary for the purchase of
+necessities not raised on his property. But he was nearly sixty, his
+wife and four daughters had besought him for years to sell out and take
+them to California, and he was now persuaded that he was as tired of
+life in the wilds of Montana as they were. He was, however, possessed
+of one fixed idea, to leave each of his “women folks” a hundred
+thousand dollars when he died. Therefore would he not take a cent less
+than five times that amount for his fine property; but although he
+inserted the advertisement that had caught Gregory’s eye, so far he had
+been unsuccessful. One man found the ranch too far from a railroad,
+another no good for farming, save intensive, as it was without a water
+supply; still another was willing to pay only a third of the amount
+down, with easy terms for the remainder.
+“It’s five hundred thousand cold cash,” said Mr. Griffiths to Gregory;
+although in a burst of confidence later he had said: “What the dickens
+I’m goin’ to do with that great wad of money when I get it beats me! It
+turns me cold to think of it.”
+Gregory had remained on the ranch two days, inventorying its stock,
+buildings, and natural resources. He estimated that seventy-five per
+cent. of the property was plow-land, the rest “rough, wooded, and
+rolling.” There were several sets of buildings on it, and the cattle
+and sheep sheds were in good condition. The cattle, sheep, and horses
+could be sold on a rising market for $200,000, thus reducing the cost
+of the land to four dollars an acre. After asking and receiving an
+option for thirty days, Gregory intimated that he would like to extend
+his trip into the mountains in search of float, and hired two riding
+horses and a pack horse from his host, besides buying of him the
+necessary food supply. Incidentally, in the course of conversation he
+learned that there was a river “somewheres in the mountains between
+thirty and forty miles northeast.”
+He received more minute directions from a prospector regarding this
+body of water, which was the object of his trip, and six miles from
+Circle-G entered a ravine some twenty-five miles long. After climbing
+one of the mountain sides that bounded the ravine, descending and
+crossing another gulch, and climbing again, he and his companion saw,
+far below, between the narrow walls of a cañon, an abundant mountain
+stream.
+The engineer proposed to divert this body of water to Circle-G Ranch.
+Through the nearest mountain side he should drive a tunnel six hundred
+feet long, and cross the short and crooked ravine with a thousand
+feet of flume to a point where it would be necessary to drive another
+tunnel, about two hundred feet in length. This would conduct the
+diverted body of water into the long ravine, down which it would flow
+to a point six miles above the ranch. Here the engineer purposed to
+construct a dam thirty feet high for the purpose of raising the water
+to an elevation from which it would flow through a canal or “ditch”, to
+the more level portions of the ranch. A rough estimate of the cost of
+this project, from headworks to ditch was $300,000.
+He returned to Circle-G, told Mr. Griffiths that he had found no float,
+but nevertheless liked the neighbourhood and was inclined to buy the
+ranch and sell it in small farms to settlers. He would return to Butte
+and think it over. If he concluded to buy he would pay a half million
+dollars in cash, and, if Mr. Griffiths were agreeable borrow back
+$300,000, for improvements, giving a mortgage at seven per cent. on
+the forty thousand acres he proposed to make attractive for settlers.
+He gave no hint of his irrigation project. Griffiths had known of this
+body of water, but it had never occurred to him nor to anyone else to
+divert it. He was a stock-grower, pure and simple, with no “modern
+notions”, and Gregory had no intention of enlarging his vision. He
+would pay the man his price, but he had the ruthlessness of his type.
+He had more than one motive for offering to borrow back $300,000 of the
+payment money; not only should he need it at once, but he feared, after
+Mr. Griffiths’ confidence, and knowing his kind, that the old man would
+withdraw in terror at the last moment, preferring the safe monotonies
+of his ranch to the unknown responsibilities of a capitalist; like
+others he had heard that it is sometimes easier to get money than to
+invest it. Gregory told him to think it over and write to the Daly and
+Clark Banks in Butte, and to the National Bank of Montana, in Helena,
+for information regarding his own standing and financial condition. He
+left the entire family in as hopeful a frame of mind as himself.
+On confirmation of the report that forty thousand acres could be put
+under water by gravity, he should close the deal at once, file a notice
+of appropriation for forty thousand miner’s inches of water, and begin
+work on the first tunnel. He then intended to lay the matter before
+one of the great land selling organisations of Chicago or New York,
+proposing that he be paid $1,400,000 for the forty thousand acres of
+irrigated land, subject to mortgage; demonstrating that the land so
+purchased for thirty-five dollars an acre (or forty-three and a half
+dollars including the mortgage) could readily be sold to settlers
+for one hundred, if railroad facilities were provided. As a further
+inducement, to cover the cost of railroad construction, he would
+execute a deed and place it in escrow, as a guarantee and evidence of
+good faith, and accompanied by a contract authorising the land selling
+company to dispose of the remaining thirty-five thousand acres at ten
+dollars an acre. The construction of the railroad would add materially
+to the value of the unirrigated land also, and a pledge of this portion
+of the property as security that the railroad would be built would be
+acceptable, because the estimated cost, with liberal allowances, was
+under $350,000.
+The sum paid him by the land selling company would, in addition to the
+large sum realised by the sale of the live stock, give him at least
+$1,600,000, or $1,100,000 over the half million originally invested.
+Mark listened with his eyes and mouth wide open.
+“By George!” he exclaimed, when Gregory finished. “Did you dope all
+that out yourself? That’s the talk of a man who’s been in the land
+business for years. How did you ever think of it?”
+“What’s a man’s brain given to him for--to turn round in a circle? Do
+you find the plan feasible?”
+“It’s feasible all right--given a cold half million in hand and brains
+behind it--plus imagination. That’s where you win out. You’ll be the
+richest man in Montana yet.”
+“I intend to be.”
+“And the first man born here to make one of the old-time fortunes.”
+“I hadn’t thought of that!”
+Mark dismissed enthusiasm and put his own astute brain to work.
+“The hitch will be with your land selling company. They might be
+dazzled, even convinced, but they’re cold-blooded, and they never have
+any too much cash on hand. What special line of argument do you propose
+to hand out?”
+“Several. I didn’t go to the Circle-G Ranch without making certain
+investigations beforehand. In the first place Government statistics
+prove the productivity of Montana soil without irrigation. I am not the
+first to discover that this same soil when irrigated is insured against
+crop failure. In the second place a study of the U. S. Government
+reclamation projects convinced me that I could, all things being
+favourable (such as water supply and gravity), put a large tract of
+land under water at a very small cost compared to the cost under the
+plan of procedure adopted by the Government. By the plan I have mapped
+out I can sell both land and water for less than the cost of water
+alone under the Government direction. But I have a final inducement
+which I believe will bring the selling company to terms. Those forty
+thousand acres when irrigated will be peculiarly adapted to the growing
+of seed peas. This is the best soil in the country for peas. Now the
+seed houses of the country are in great need of large quantities
+of seed peas, and the selling company could easily interest these
+concerns to the extent of securing their financial backing. They would
+no doubt buy large blocks themselves. Such an opportunity has never
+been offered them--forty thousand acres under the ditch, and adequate
+railroad service. This will enable the selling company to raise an
+initial payment to me of $200,000. And if I guarantee the ditch and the
+railroad they are in a position to make the same guarantee to settlers
+to whom they may make sales in a retail way. They’ll have no difficulty
+getting $100 an acre retail; and the seed houses no doubt would invest
+and become real owners, thus saving the profit now paid to farmers who
+grow for them under contract. Got it?”
+“I get you. But why put all of your own money into the ranch? Ora has
+taken something like half a million out of that mine. I could let you
+have that.”
+“I’ll risk no woman’s money. Of course I shouldn’t put my own in if I
+didn’t believe it to be a dead sure thing, but there’s always risk.” He
+took a packet of papers from his overcoat pocket. “Here are the option
+and abstract of titles. I wish you would examine them. Say nothing of
+all this at present--nor for a long time after. I’ll spring it when
+I’m ready--which will be after I’ve disposed of the irrigated land.
+Will you go out with me when I return to Circle-G? I shall want you to
+attend to the details of sale and to the location of the water rights.”
+“I’ll go all right. And I’m only living to see what you’ll do next.”
+XXIX
+Meanwhile the story of the Compton-Amalgamated war was the sensation
+not only of Montana but of the entire country. The Butte morning
+papers ignored it, but the _Evening Bugle_ reaped a golden harvest.
+The editor himself, who was the Montana correspondent of one of the
+great New York dailies, made his reputation with the most sensational
+“stuff” that had gone from the Northwest since Heinze retired from the
+field. The hill swarmed with reporters. Two Eastern newspapers sent
+special correspondents to the spot. In less than a fortnight the public
+knew all there was to know and far more. Perch of the Devil Mine was
+photographed inside and out, and its uncompromising ugliness but added
+to its magnetism; which emanated from a “solid hill of metal just below
+a thin layer of barren soil.” The general reader, who admired the
+colour of copper, conceived that it emerged in solid sheets.
+Gregory refused to be interviewed or photographed, but was snapshotted;
+and his long sinewy figure and lean dark face, his narrow eyes and
+fine mouth, won the championship of every woman partial to the type.
+The women’s papers, as well as those run by radicals, socialists, and
+conservative men of independent tendencies, advocated his cause against
+the wicked trust; nor was there a newspaper in the country, however
+capitalised, that resisted the temptation to make him “big news.” To
+his unspeakable annoyance he began to receive letters by the score,
+most of them from women; but he lost no time employing a secretary
+whose duty was to read and burn them. He appreciated his fame very
+vaguely, for between his mine and the innumerable details connected
+with his new ranch, he had little time to devote to newspapers or his
+own sensations. But although personal notoriety was distasteful to him
+and reporters a nuisance, he felt more than compensated by the success
+of his publicity scheme, and the assurance that it was causing the
+enemy unspeakable annoyance and apprehension.
+He paid a visit to Chicago after work had begun on the first tunnel,
+and spent several days with the interested but cautious officials
+of the greatest of the land selling companies. Like all silent men,
+when he did talk it was not only to the point, but he used carefully
+composed arguments incisively expressed. He indulged in no rhetorical
+flights, no enthusiasms, no embellishment of plain facts. He might
+have been a mathematician working out an abstract problem in algebra;
+and this attitude, combined with his reputation as a “winner”, and the
+details of his cautious purchase of Circle-G Ranch, finally impressed
+the company to the extent of sending one of their number, who was an
+expert in land values, to the ranch. Gregory accompanied him, took him
+to the mountain river, showed him the engineer’s report, pointed out
+the undeviating slope between the river and the ranch, and the land’s
+rich chocolate brown soil of unlimited depth. The upshot was that the
+expert returned to Chicago almost as enthusiastic as if the original
+scheme were his. After consultation with several of the seed houses,
+the land company agreed to buy on Compton’s terms, and to pay $200,000
+down, $500,000 at the end of sixty days, and $700,000 at the end of
+four months.
+       *       *       *       *       *
+Ora and Ida had asked for an extension of leave, as they had not
+yet “done” Italy, Spain, and Egypt, and both husbands had given a
+willing consent; Gregory from sheer indifference; Mark because he was
+so busy that he no longer had time to miss his wife. He refused to
+give Ora’s picture to the enterprising correspondents, but they found
+no difficulty with the local photographer. They had not been long
+uncovering the romantic history of the Oro Fino Primo Mine, and it made
+a welcome pendant to the still recourseful “story” of Perch of the
+Devil. Ora’s beauty, accomplishments, charm, family history, as well
+as her present social progress in company with her “equally beautiful
+friend”, the wife of the hero of the hour, became public property.
+Altogether, Butte, after several years of oblivion, was happy and
+excited. So far, although mineralogically the most sensational state
+in the Union, and the third in size, she had given to the world but
+four highly specialized individuals: Marcus Daly, perhaps the greatest
+mine manager and ore wizard of our time; W. A. Clark, who accumulated
+millions as a moving picture show rolls in dimes; F. Augustus Heinze,
+who should be the greatest financial power in America if brains
+were all; and the Sapphic, coruscatic, imperishable Mary McLane. An
+outstanding quartette. But Daly was dead, Clark was but one of many
+millionaires, submerged in New York, Heinze was reaping the whirlwind,
+and the poet was nursing her wounds. Montana was in the mood for a new
+hero, and the American press for a new and picturesque subject to “play
+up for all he was worth.”
+XXX
+Ora and Ida were sitting at one of the little round tables in the
+pretty green and wicker smoking-room of the Hotel Bristol in Genoa,
+drinking their coffee and smoking their after-luncheon cigarettes, when
+Ida, who was glancing over the _Herald_, cried,
+“Aw!”
+Ora looked round in surprise. Ida often relieved the strain when they
+were alone by relapsing into the vernacular, but was impressively
+elegant in public.
+“What is it?” she asked apprehensively. “Anybody we know dead? That is
+about all the news we ever get in these Continental----”
+“Dead nothing. Greg’s struck a bigger bonanza than I had any idea
+of, and Amalgamated is after it. They tried to corral your mine for
+delinquent taxes, but got left. Found a bit of unclaimed land between
+your claim and the ranch and staked off. They’re sinking a shaft and
+mean to prove that the vein--Greg’s--apexes in their claim. Wouldn’t
+that come and get you! Just listen.” And she read aloud an embellished
+but not untruthful tale. “Glory, I hope they don’t get him! That would
+be the end of all my fond dreams.”
+“I have an idea that Mr. Compton was born to win. At all events you
+have your new house in Butte, and all the money you can spend for the
+present.”
+“Yes, but I want money to spend in Butte, live in that house, and make
+things hum. However, I guess you’re right. I’ll bet on Greg. Here come
+the letters. Hope you get one from Mark as I’d like some real news.”
+A page with letters in his hand had entered the room. He served the
+young American ladies first as their tips were frequent and munificent,
+particularly Ora’s. The other people in the room were English and
+Italian.
+Ida’s letters were from Ruby and Pearl. Ora’s from Mark, Professor
+Becke, and two of her English friends. She opened her husband’s first.
+It contained an account of the threatened loss of her mine, her narrow
+escape, and Gregory’s rescue. It was graphically written. Mark fancied
+himself as a letter writer and never was averse from impressing his
+clever wife.
+Ora’s face flushed as she read; she lost her breath once or twice.
+She pictured every expression of Gregory’s eyes as he perforated the
+clerk; her heart hammered its admiration. She was too thoroughly
+Montanan and the daughter of her father to be horrified at bribery and
+corruption. For the moment she forgot gratitude in her exultation that
+he had triumphed over the mightiest trust in the country. But before
+she finished the letter she sighed and set her lips. She handed it
+deliberately to Ida.
+“Here is an account of the first development,” she said casually. “It
+will interest you.”
+Ida read the letter hastily. “Well, they caught him napping after all,”
+she said with profound dissatisfaction. “He dreams too much, that’s
+what. He’s got a practical side all right, but he isn’t on the job all
+the time. I’d like to write and tell him what I think of him but guess
+I’d better keep my mouth shut.”
+“It was Mark’s fault as much as Mr. Compton’s--more. He should have had
+a new map made of my claim; or, if he did have one made, he should have
+studied it more carefully. Anybody to look at it would assume that it
+touched the boundary line of your--Mr. Compton’s ranch.”
+“Well, Greg’ll get out of it some way. When he does sit up and take
+notice he doesn’t so much as wink, and so far as he knew or cared the
+rest of the world might have waltzed off into space. Lucky it hit him
+to buy the house and send that last five thousand before he snapped
+close on Amalgamated----”
+“What does Miss Miller have to say?”
+“Nothing much but ecstasies over my house. The Murphys had taste, it
+seems, so I won’t have to do a thing to it. Say, Ora, don’t you feel as
+if you’d like to go back?”
+Ora looked up and her face turned white. “Go back? I thought you wanted
+to stay over here for a year, at least. We haven’t half seen Europe
+yet--to say nothing of Egypt.”
+“Yes--I know--but sometimes I feel homesick. It isn’t only that I want
+to make Butte sit up; but--well, I suppose you’ll laugh, but I miss
+the mountains. I never thought much about them when I was there, but
+they’ve kind of haunted me lately.”
+“There are mountains in Europe.”
+“I know, but they’re just scenery. Our mountains are different.”
+Ora looked at her speculatively. It was not the first time that Ida
+had surprised her with glow-worms flitting across her spiritual night,
+although she seemed to be so devoid of imagination, or what she would
+have called superfluous nonsense, as to inspire her more highly
+organised friend with envy. Her mental and artistic development had
+been rapid and remarkable but uneven. She yawned through the opera and
+symphony concerts. She would always be bored by pictures unless she
+could read a “story” in them, although she had now mastered the jargon
+of art as well as most of her quick-witted country-women. In Florence
+and Rome she had “struck” after one morning of picture galleries, but
+she showed a spontaneous and curious appreciation of the architecture
+of the Renaissance. Ora had expected the usual ecstasies over the old
+castles of England and Germany, but although Ida admired them heartily,
+and even declared they made her feel “real romantic,” it was for the
+Renaissance palaces of France and of the cities they visited in Italy
+that she reserved her instant and critical admiration. Ora, who like
+most imaginative people played with the theory of reincarnation, amused
+herself visioning Ida in Burne-Jones costumes, haunting the chill
+midnight corridors of a Florentine palace, dagger in hand, or brewing
+a poisoned bowl. If Ida possessed a rudimentary soul, which suffered
+a birth-pang now and then, Ora had caught more than one glimpse of a
+savage temper combined with a cunning that under her present advantages
+was rapidly developing into subtlety. But Ida indulged too little in
+introspection to develop her inmost ego other than automatically. To
+mental progress she was willing to devote a certain amount of labour.
+Whenever they were not on a train or visiting at country houses, she
+spent an hour every morning with a teacher of either French or Italian;
+German she had refused to “tackle,” but, to use her own phrase, she
+“ate up” the Latin languages, and her diction was remarkably good. If
+picture galleries replete with saints, virgins, madonnas and Venuses
+bored her, she returned more than once to the portrait rooms in the
+Pitti and the Uffizi galleries, haunted the museums with their mediæval
+and Renaissance furniture and tapestries, and eagerly visited every
+palace to which the public was admitted.
+And she proved herself as adaptable as Ora had hoped. In England she
+bored her way through the newspapers until she was able to sustain her
+part in political conversation. She soon discerned that English people
+of assured position and wide social experience liked a certain degree
+of picturesque Americanism when it was unaccompanied by garrulity
+or blatant ill-breeding. She amused herself by “giving them what
+they wanted,” and was a more pronounced success than Ora, who was
+outwardly too much like themselves, yet lacking the matchless fortune
+of English birth. But this did not disturb Ora, who made more real
+friends, and derived endless amusement observing Ida. On one occasion
+they visited for a week at one of the country homes of a duke and
+duchess that had entertained Mrs. Stratton many years ago, and Ida had
+enchanted these bored but liberal products of a nation that led with
+too much indifference the Grand March of Civilisation with her Western
+“breeziness” and terminology (carefully selected), combined with her
+severely cut and altogether admirable gowns, and her fine imposing
+carriage. From this castle she went on with Ora to one leased by an
+ambitious American more English than the English, who permitted herself
+to indulge in a very little fashionable slang, but had consigned the
+American vernacular to oblivion in the grave of her ancestors. Here Ida
+was languid and correct (save at the midnight hour when she sought Ora,
+not only for relaxation but the instructions she was never too proud to
+receive); her English slang (which she had “swapped” for much of her
+own with her various British admirers) was impeccable, and she flirted
+like a stage duchess.
+She estimated the various aristocracies she entered under Ora’s wing
+as a grand moving picture show run for the benefit of Americans, and
+was grateful to have an inside seat, although nothing would have bored
+her more than to take a permanent position in their midst. With their
+history, traditions, psychology, she concerned herself not at all; nor
+did she in any way manifest a desire to cultivate the intellectual
+parts of her shrewd, observing, clutching brain. She threw away as many
+opportunities as she devoured, but on the whole proved herself somewhat
+more adaptable than the usual American woman elevated suddenly from the
+humbler walks of life to the raking searchlights of Society. In Berlin
+and Vienna she repeated her social triumphs, for, although Americans
+do not penetrate far below the crust of Continental society, smart
+men abound in the crust; Ida graduated as an adept in flirtation with
+agreeable and subtle men of the world, yet keeping the most practical
+at arm’s length with a carefully calculated Western directness and
+artlessness that amounted to genius.
+In France and Italy the dazzling fairness of Ora had its innings. A
+vague suggestion of unreality, almost morbid, and a very definite one
+of unawakened womanhood, combined with a cultivated mind, ready wit,
+and air of high breeding, gave her a success as genuine as Ida’s and
+somewhat more perilous. But she soon learned to tread warily, after her
+theories of European men had been vindicated by personal experience.
+In fact, after the two girls had ceased to be mere tourists they had
+taken the advice of one of Mrs. Stratton’s friends and enlisted the
+services of an indigent lady of title as chaperon. Lady Gower had been
+little more than a figurehead but had served her purpose in averting
+gossip; and now that her charges were tourists again had returned to
+her lodgings in Belgravia. As maids also are a doubtful luxury when
+travelling they had recently dismissed the last of a long line.
+On the whole the two girls had got on together amazingly well. They had
+had their differences of opinion, but Ora was too proud to quarrel,
+Ida too easy-going and appreciative of the butter on her bread. It was
+fortunate, however, that Gregory had been able to provide his wife
+with an abundance of money, for she was far too shrewd, and far too
+interested in prices, to remain hoodwinked for long. After three months
+of sight-seeing and _pensions_ both had been glad to leave the tourist
+class and mingle in the more spectacular life of the great world, and
+that had meant trousseaux in Paris. There Ida had “gowned” herself
+for the first time, and her delight in her fashionable wardrobe had
+been equalled only by her satisfaction in driving a bargain. At present
+they were resting in Genoa, a favourite city of Ora’s, after a hard ten
+weeks in Rome.
+XXXI
+They finished their letters and went up to their rooms to rest, for
+they had “done” several churches and the Campo Santo during the morning.
+“Thank the lord,” said Ida, as they walked up the stairs after waiting
+ten minutes for the lift, “there are no picture galleries in this
+town that one _must_ see. The rest of the programme is streets and
+architecture, which is worth while. These internal streets make me feel
+as if I were going right through to China, or whatever is underneath
+Italy. Genoa, before it had any houses on it, must have looked like
+Last Chance Gulch, Helena, Montana.”
+They had reached their connecting rooms. Ida extended herself on a
+sofa, Ora made herself as comfortable as possible in a chair and lit a
+cigarette.
+“Say, kid,” pursued Ida, “you smoke too much. Follow my illustrious
+example. I go just so far and no farther--one cigarette after each meal
+because it makes me feel nice and aristocratic. You’re the kind that
+lets a habit run away with you. I deliberate. You drift. See?”
+Ora laughed. “Funny thing, nature! Anyone would say quite the opposite
+of each of us.”
+“It’s like life. Not a blooming thing is just what you figure it out
+beforehand. Here I wanted the Collins house and I’ve got the Murphy.
+And Greg, that I figured on being a millionaire by the time I got back,
+has gone and tied himself up in litigation, or is heading that way.”
+“You ungrateful wretch! You came to Europe ‘figuring’ on making a
+thousand dollars serve for the entire trip and you already have had
+eleven thousand. Most rules work both ways. But you don’t really want
+to go back?”
+“I do. It’s been growing for some time and now it’s ingrowing. You can
+get enough of anything and I’ve had enough of Europe. Besides, I’d
+like to get back to a country where lifts are elevators and don’t go
+to sleep a few times on the way up; where it doesn’t take an hour to
+draw a bath, which it does wherever it’s pronounced băth; where you can
+drink plain water, and don’t have cheese or garlic or grease in all
+your food; where you are never taken for what you ain’t; where you are
+never cheated and overcharged because you’re an American; where you
+don’t have to see a sight a minute; where you don’t have to talk up to
+people who don’t give a hang about anything that interests you; where
+you are not looked upon as a rank outsider by ancient aristocrats and
+concierges, no matter how polite they try to be; and where the word
+democracy means what it is. Over here every socialist--I’ll bet every
+anarchist--would give his front teeth to be a king, a duke, or even
+a rich bourgeois. That’s what’s the matter with all of them. Give me
+America, above all, old Montana. A little money and a lot of ‘go’ are
+all you need out there.”
+“Oh, Ida! Ida! will you never appreciate the glory of Europe? Is that
+all you have got out of it?”
+“I’ve squeezed it dry, all right, and I’ll take back a lot more than
+I figured on. Watch me when I’m swelling round Butte, imitating the
+chaste simplicity of a British duchess--minus the duds they generally
+sport. There’s nothing like Europe to teach you what’s what--especially
+the way we’ve seen it--put you wise in ten thousand different ways, and
+fill your mind with pretty pictures--that ain’t in galleries. But after
+all it’s just a course in the higher education, and you’re outside
+of it all, every minute. To live you’ve got to go back to your own
+country.”
+“That’s true enough!”
+“Could you marry a European and live over here for the rest of your
+life and never see those mountains again that just seem to belong to
+you--or even screaming old Butte?”
+“No!” Ora spoke with uncommon vehemence. “I couldn’t!”
+Ida raised herself on her elbow and looked at her friend shrewdly. “I
+can’t see that you’ve enjoyed yourself so much over here. It seems to
+me that you’ve got your fun out of showing me round. You had more real
+gaiety in you in Butte. You may not know it but you look pretty sad
+sometimes.”
+“Life is sad--mighty sad.”
+“Is it? That’s a new one for me. I think it a pretty fine old
+proposition. What went wrong with you--early in the game?”
+“Nothing. Travel is tiring, I’m not as strong as you are.”
+“You’re as tough as a pine knot, for all you look like a lily expecting
+to be decapitated by the first wind. Well, you won’t tell if you won’t,
+but I’ll tell you what you need. You’ve never been in love and that’s
+a sort of ache in women until they’ve taken a good dose of the only
+medicine. I rather hoped you’d met your fate in the Marchese Valdobia.
+He’s the sort you once told me was your type, and you seemed to like
+him pretty well for about five weeks in Rome. The lord knows he was
+tall enough, and dark enough, and thin enough, and looked as if he had
+a beastly temper besides. Then you turned him down good and hard. I was
+sorry----”
+“My dear Ida! Are you regretting that I did not have a liaison with
+Valdobia? I remember your virtuous sentiments in Butte. Perhaps it is
+time for us to return!”
+“Oh, I’m all right. But I’m that advanced I wouldn’t mind you having an
+affair the least bit if it would make you happy----”
+“Happy! What happiness do you imagine there can be when you are
+absolutely at the mercy of a man?--when you never know whether you will
+see him again or not?--a woman has no real hold on a lover. Matrimony
+with the man you love may have its agonies, but at least you live with
+him, you make his home; his interests are yours, he is dependent upon
+you for comfort and sympathy; there are a thousand ways in which you
+can endear and enchain him. But a lover, whom you meet in secret for
+one purpose only, who can give you no real companionship--oh, no! I
+shall not court that particular form of suffering. Life is hard enough
+without that! I’ve known women with lovers and so have you.”
+“I don’t say it would last forever; nothing does, for that matter. But
+at least you would live for a little while--come down off the unearthly
+plane you roost on now. Whatever you went through, it would leave you
+all-round developed and philosophical--in a frame of mind to see and
+accept life as it is. You need hardening. I was born hard. You’re as
+soft as mush, for all you look like those marble bores in the Vatican,
+and as romantic as if you’d spent all your life in a castle in a wood
+with the drawbridge up. I believe you even keep a diary----”
+“Diary----” Ora sat up straight.
+“I’ve seen and heard you writing by the yard, late at night, mostly. It
+wasn’t letters, because we always get those off our chest just after
+breakfast--fine system. Unless you’re a budding author----”
+“They were letters!” Ora, who was strung up to a high pitch and merely
+smoking for relief, felt a defiant impulse to indulge in the impudence
+of confession. “I’ve written yards and yards of letters to a man----”
+“What? And you don’t send them off!”
+“I don’t know him.”
+“Good lord, what next? An ideal, I suppose.”
+“Yes--that’s it.”
+“Do you mean you never saw him--anyone to suggest him--it? What gender
+has an ideal, anyhow?”
+“I saw him--talked with him, once. I said I didn’t know him.”
+“And you’re in love with him!”
+“Not in the least. He simply jolted my imagination, gave me the idea of
+what might be--have been. I--it is hard to express--I feel in a sort
+of mental--spiritual?--affinity with him. When I write I have a queer
+sense of absolute communion--as if we were talking--I suppose it is
+because I know he would understand if I could send the letters----”
+“And you’ve never sent one?”
+“Of course not. It is--well, just a little private one-sided drama I’m
+living; a sort of book of which I am the heroine. While I write I am
+alive. The rest of the time I wonder what I was put on this earth at
+all for.”
+“Look at here, Ora, the best thing we can do is to send for old Gower
+and go back to Rome. You’ll be having nerves first thing you know.
+No, we’d cut out the annex. I’m dead sick of her, and everybody knows
+we’re all right; in Rome they don’t care, anyhow. You could have a real
+romance. We’d take one of those old palaces, haunted, moth-eaten, with
+one of those antique porters that looks as if he’d let out midnight
+lovers ten centuries ago, and beds that twenty centuries have died in.
+That would just suit you. I’d enjoy a second-hand romance first rate,
+and be the trusted friend.”
+“Ida, you are incorrigible! Even if I cared a penny about Valdobia do
+you suppose I would betray my husband?”
+“Rats! Don’t you suppose Mark has a girl down on The Flat? Greg has,
+I’ll bet--well, don’t look as if you were going to faint. What’s the
+use of being a dog in the manger? Mark’ll be the same old devoted when
+you get back.”
+“Oh, do keep quiet! And I wish I might never see Butte again. I think
+I’ll write to Mark and ask him to move to New York. He now has plenty
+of money to wait, and it wouldn’t take him long to establish himself
+anywhere----”
+“I thought you loved Montana--wanted to do something big for her----”
+“We’ve been away a long time. I fancy I’m weaned. It is only once in a
+while that I feel a pull--merely because I was born there.”
+“Well, Mark won’t leave, believe me. He’s Western from the cut of his
+back hair to his love of the free-and-easy. No New York for him except
+the all-night two or three times a year. Butte’s your fate unless you
+leave him.”
+“I’ll never do that, but I’d like to stay over here for another year
+or two. Remember, I was brought up in Europe--and--and--I _might_ meet
+the man--If you want to know I’ve tried. I’d never go as far as you
+suggest, but I could get something--companionship, perhaps, out of it.”
+“When you meet the man you’ll forget all you ever knew, and men don’t
+companion for a cent when there’s nothing in it. I haven’t been turning
+them inside out these last six months for nothing; what I don’t
+know about men wouldn’t fill a thimble. Why don’t you round up your
+letter-man?”
+“That is forever impossible.”
+“Do give me a hint who he is. I’m half dead with curiosity. Where’d you
+meet him?”
+“Keep quiet. I’m going to take a nap.”
+“Well,” said Ida, yawning and stretching herself, “so am I, if you’ve
+closed up. When we get back to Butte and there’s no more sight-seeing
+on, we’ll have to cut out these siestas or we’ll get fat, and then
+good-bye.”
+XXXII
+They went out at half-past five and joined the dense sauntering throng
+under the arcade of the Via Venti Settembre. All Genoa turns out at
+this hour with apparently no object but to amble and stare. The two
+girls, particularly Ora, who appeared to be the only blonde in the
+city, were almost mobbed. Every other man spoke to them, or rolled
+his eyes and twirled his moustache. But they preserved a lofty and
+blank demeanour, and were practically unmolested. The Genoese works
+almost as hard as the American during a few hours of the day and haunts
+the afternoon throngs only to amuse himself indolently. If one woman
+ignores him he passes on philosophically to the next.
+“Lord, but I’d like to get a move on!” exclaimed Ida. “Why don’t they
+_walk_? Is this what they call exercise? And I wouldn’t mind their
+ogling and speaking if they only wouldn’t pinch. I’ll give this side a
+rest, anyhow.” And she dexterously changed places and drew Ora’s other
+arm through her own.
+“I love them, pinches and all,” said Ora, warmly. “They are like
+children in one way, and yet they really know how to rest and enjoy
+themselves, which is more than our men ever do. Even the working-class
+enjoys life over here. I wonder why they emigrate?”
+They had passed round the corner of the arcade and entered the Piazza
+Defarrari, working their way toward the Via Roma. Ora stopped before
+one of the cantinas behind the statue of Garibaldi. “Look at those men
+drinking their cheap wine and gossipping. They look as if they hadn’t a
+care in the world.”
+“Give me the hustling American,” said Ida contemptuously. “I don’t call
+this life. They’re just drifting along waiting for the Angel Gabriel
+to blow his trump. What makes them so lazy and contented? They know
+they can go just so far over here and no farther. Ancient history made
+classes and masses, and while they have fun, some of them, thinking
+they’re socialists, they know that most of them will stay put. But the
+only real fun in life is getting ahead of the next fellow and knowing
+that your chance is as good as any.”
+“What a truly American sentiment!”
+“I’m American, all right, and that’s the reason I want to get back to
+Butte, where things hum every minute, and there’s no real poverty.
+Fancy calling these left-overs ‘middle-class’ like our miners. Every
+one of those looks forward to being President of Amalgamated one of
+these days, or striking it rich in the mountains.”
+“There are different varieties of happiness, fortunately for several
+billions that are seeking it.”
+“Do you know,” said Ida, abruptly, as they turned into the Galleria
+Mazzini from the Via Roma, “it’s queer, but I feel more at home in
+Italy than I have anywhere else over here, although I had a really
+better time in England and Germany and Austria. I don’t hit it off much
+with Italians, but--well--I have a more settled-down feeling.”
+“That’s odd!”
+“Why?”
+“Oh, I’ve been romancing about you a bit, fancying you a reincarnation
+of one of those fascinating abominable women of the Renaissance, who
+had innumerable lovers and poisoned their husbands, or rivals. You
+would look quite wonderful in those long velvet or brocaded gowns, with
+sleeves that come down over the hands, and pearls twined in your hair.”
+“That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I was, although I don’t see myself
+with lovers or thinking anybody worth swinging for. Several American
+reincarnations must have changed my habits; but I don’t mind looking
+the part. Good idea--when we get back to Paris I’ll have several of
+those Renaissance costumes made. They won’t go out of style, either.
+Greg can fork over the pearls later.”
+“You’ll be a picture. I wish I had thought of it before. Don’t you
+think you are capable of jealousy?”
+“Nixie. To be jealous you’ve got to have a fearful crush; and thank the
+lord I don’t love anybody but myself and never shall.”
+“That is often the secret of love for some man--of most men’s love for
+a woman, I imagine! Perhaps it creates the most powerful delusion of
+all.”
+“Well, none of it in mine. Me for the great society act. I’m going to
+be the grandest dame in Montana, and when I’ve wrung that dry I’ll move
+on to New York. Greg says he won’t, means to live and die in Montana,
+but I guess he’ll manage to stand it if I desert him occasionally.
+If he’s got a hill full of copper he won’t know whether I’m in Butte
+or the Waldorf-Astoria. You look better, Ora; you ought to stay out
+of doors more and watch these funny old crowds. You’ve got a nice
+colour, and smile as if you meant it--Oh! that’s it, is it? Well, thank
+goodness, I’ve got a front seat----”
+“What on earth are you talking about?”
+“Pretending you haven’t seen him? I like that!”
+Ida felt the arm within her own stiffen. “Valdobia! Don’t leave me for
+a moment.”
+“I won’t, although, believe me, the rôle of gooseberry is no cinch.”
+“I’ve played it for you often enough.”
+“You have, and I’m a dead game sport. Lord! he looks more bad-tempered
+than ever. Probably every meal he’s eaten since you left has disagreed
+with him, including macaroni.”
+“He’s not bad-tempered. Hot-tempered, no doubt, but I’m sure he’s kind
+and quite amiable. He’s rather grim, and of course he’s lived pretty
+hard and is disillusioned. That is all.”
+“That’s right, stand up for him. Bad sign--or a good one! He’s seen us!”
+Valdobia’s eyes flashed recognition, although he lifted his hat with
+unsmiling lips, and made no effort to push his way through the crowd.
+Ora favoured him with a glance of chill indifference as she returned
+his salutation, but she noticed that he made the young Genoese
+patricians look provincial. He not only was tall and gracefully built,
+his carriage military, but he had the air of repose and distinction,
+as well as the keen, tolerant, detached glance, of the man who has
+spent his life in the great world, and, on the whole, subordinated
+his weaknesses to his brain. It was evident that he was dressed from
+Conduit Street, and at first glance, in spite of his dark colouring
+and fine Roman features, his nationality was not obtrusive; he looked
+the cosmopolitan, the man-of-the-world, who might have made his
+headquarters in any one of her great capitals. As a matter of fact,
+while in the diplomatic service he had lived in several, including a
+short sojourn in Washington; but after coming into a large inheritance
+through the death of his father and of an energetic uncle who had
+boldly gone into business and prospered, he had travelled for a year in
+Africa and India and then settled in Rome.
+If he was too indifferent or too wise to hurry he managed to make his
+way consistently toward them, although a crowd had formed about a
+bulletin board to read the latest news from the seat of war. He stood
+opposite them in three or four minutes and shook hands politely with
+both.
+“At last!” he said. “I called at the Bristol, and have been looking
+for you ever since.” He had a warm deep voice but his tones and manner
+expressed less than his words.
+“You don’t have to look far in Genoa,” said Ida, giving him a cordial
+smile and handshake to cover Ora’s chilling welcome. “If the whole town
+turns out for what it calls exercise, each quarter seems to keep to
+itself. We see the same faces every day.”
+Valdobia fell into step beside Ida, who at once began to chatter
+questions about their common acquaintance in Rome. She grinned mentally
+as she rattled off titles, recalling the wiry little figure of her
+mother at the wash-tub, and her father with his “muck”-spattered
+overalls and blue dinner pail; but Valdobia, too accustomed to titles
+to note whether Americans were lavish in their use or not, replied
+naturally and refrained from glancing at the woman who had given his
+self-centred ego the profoundest shock it had ever received. He was
+now thirty-eight. In his early manhood he had loved with the facility
+and brevity of his race. Then for six years, after his return to Rome,
+he had been the lover of a brilliant and subtle woman ten years older
+than himself, who, for a short time, inspired in him the belief that
+at last he had entered the equatorial region of the _grande passion_.
+This passed off, and she became a habit, which lasted until, with
+the decline of her beauty, she lost much of her finesse, as well as
+her control over both temper and complexion. It had taken him a year
+or more to regain his liberty, and when he did, after scenes that
+he fain would dismiss from his memory, he determined to keep it. His
+long experience with a woman of many characteristics and one or two
+noble qualities, before she gossipped and inflamed them to death, had
+thoroughly disillusioned him, and since his release his gallantries
+had been lighter than in his youth. When he first met Ora Blake he was
+attracted merely by her cold fairness, redeemed from classic severity
+by her brilliant seeing eyes, which so often sparkled with humour, and
+amused at her naïve and girlish attitude of happiness in temporary
+freedom; so successfully practised by herself and Ida. He had supposed
+her to be little more than twenty, and had wondered if her husband
+were even busier than the average American, to let her run away so
+soon. When she told him she was twenty-seven, and had been married
+seven years, he found himself speculating on the temperament of a woman
+whom time and life had left untouched. Shortly after, he received a
+biographical sketch of her from Mrs. O’Neil, also of Butte, who was
+wintering in Rome and entertaining such of the aristocracy as she met
+at her Embassy. It was some time since his thoughts had dwelt upon
+any woman when alone, and when he found himself sitting by his window
+in the evening dreaming over his cigar instead of amusing himself in
+the varied life of Rome after his habit, he was at first amused, then
+angry, finally apprehensive. He had no desire for another period of
+torment, followed by the successive stages that finished in impatience
+and satiety.
+He tried flirting with her, making her talk about herself, focussing
+her mind on the years she seemed determined to ignore, in the hope
+of discovering that she was commonplace. But Ora, who found him more
+interesting than any man she had met in Europe, also a conquest to be
+proud of, continued to make herself interesting--and elusive--with a
+skill and subtlety that so closely resembled the frank ingenuousness of
+the West, that the man accustomed to the patented finesse of European
+women experienced the agreeable sensation of renewing his youth. He
+felt himself falling in love like a schoolboy, and meditated flight. He
+remained in Rome, however, and made a deliberate attempt to fascinate
+her. Then one day when Ida was pouring tea at the Embassy, chaperoned
+by Lady Gower, he found Ora alone, indisposed after a sleepless night,
+and lost his head. Ora, who was in no mood to let him down gently and
+reserve him for conversational pleasures, dismissed him abruptly,
+and had not seen him since. She had regretted her impatience, for he
+was always worth talking to, her feminine liking for his type was
+very strong, and she had amused herself fancying that if she had not
+permitted another man to rule her imagination she might have found her
+fate in this one. But as he had presumed to follow her when she had
+banished him summarily, she greeted him with cool civility and resumed
+her study of the kaleidoscopic crowd.
+Suddenly she moved her head in a fashion that suggested the lifting of
+one of the little ears that lay so close to her head and were not the
+least of her points. The ear was on the side next to her companion in
+arms. Could it be that Ida was flirting with Valdobia? Mrs. Compton’s
+manner and speech were as correct as her smartly tailored suit and hat
+of black velvet and the calm pride of her bearing, but she was talking
+with sweet earnestness to the Roman about himself and expressing her
+plaintive gratitude that he had cared to follow them to Genoa, where
+she at least was very lonely. It had not been possible for Ora to see
+the flash of understanding these two had exchanged after Valdobia’s
+first puzzled glance, but she did see many heads turn to look at the
+handsome and well-matched couple. Even the Italian women did not
+smile ironically as they so often did at the too obvious American
+tourist. Ida not only had delivered herself of every exterior trace
+of commonness, but would no more have appeared on the street looking
+the mere tourist than she could be betrayed into adopting the extreme
+of any new style by the persuasive Parisian. She saw Ora’s head come
+round her shoulder, and her voice deepened to the soft husky tones she
+reserved for decisive moments with her agitated admirers, then dropped
+so low that only the man, with his head bent, could hear the words. At
+this stage of the flirtation’s progress Ora noted that the approving
+glances of the sympathetic Italians were accompanied by significant
+smiles.
+They had reached the end of the long Galleria for the second time and
+turned. The crowd was thin. The restaurants were filling. Shutters
+were rattling down over the windows of the tempting shops. Said Ora
+abruptly,
+“I think I’d like to dine in one of these cafés--the Milano. The
+Bristol dining-room is a little Ritz, and it’s a bore to dress.”
+Valdobia leaned forward with a pleasant smile. “I should like nothing
+better, but you must dine with me.”
+“Why not? What do you say, Ida?”
+“I’d love it. The food is good and the crowd more interesting.”
+They entered the bright café and seated themselves at one of the side
+tables, the two girls on the bench against the wall, Valdobia in the
+chair opposite. A number of the tables were already occupied, several
+by stout comfortable couples, but the majority by men with their hats
+on, playing dominoes or reading the evening papers. Opposite the door
+was a long table set forth with the delicacies of the season: raw meat,
+winter vegetables, oranges, and kicking lobsters.
+Valdobia, assiduously waited upon by the proprietor himself (whose
+wife, surrounded by several of her children, smiled benignantly from
+the cashier’s desk), ordered a special dinner; a light soup (the table
+d’hôte soup was a meal in itself), spaghetti, inimitably cooked veal
+in brown butter, salad, freshly caught fish, ices, and a bottle of the
+host’s most precious Chianti.
+“I never could have pictured you in a Bohemian restaurant,” said Ora,
+smiling brilliantly into the face of her host. “Have you ever been in a
+place like this before?”
+“About as often as I have weeks to my credit.” He looked steadily
+into her snapping eyes. “You have studied Italians to little purpose
+if you’ve not discovered their partiality for their native cooking.
+These plain little cafés are the last strongholds in our large cities.
+Even the restaurants where the business men go for luncheon are queer
+imitations of London or Paris.”
+“We like to come here because the men pay no attention to us. It is men
+of your class that know how to make us thoroughly uncomfortable.”
+“Quite so. Every class has its own code. In ours it may be said
+that the women set the pace. They demand open admiration and we are
+gallant enough to give it. This class bothers itself little about the
+unattainable, and merely throws you the passing tribute they would
+throw to the Queen, or to a beautiful work of art.”
+“Which they appreciate. Would that our working-classes did. On this
+side the masses are as likely as not to spend their holidays in a
+picture gallery or a museum. Ours can think of nothing better than a
+saloon.”
+“That may be the fault of your great country. The crude mind is
+easily trained. Give your working-people more galleries and museums
+and fewer saloons--or cantinas with their light wines, and beer
+gardens, instead of rum and whiskey. But it is unfair to expect a new
+and heterogeneous--almost chaotic--country to compete with twenty
+centuries.” Two pairs of American eyes flashed, and he continued
+suavely. “I fear that the old standards of my own people are in danger
+of being demoralised by socialism and the new craving for raw spirits.
+That is becoming a serious question with us.” He turned to Ida. “It is
+far more odd to see you without your usual train of admirers--both of
+you. How do you stand it?”
+“Oh, we’re merely recuperating,” said Ida lightly, and smiling into his
+admiring eyes. “We will return to the fray refreshed and more dangerous
+than ever.”
+“How much longer shall you stay here?”
+“A week or two. Then we go on to Paris. After that Egypt, Spain, or
+some other old place.”
+“But not without seeing Monte Carlo? You must let me show it to you.”
+“I suppose that is an old stamping ground of yours?”
+“I go once a year, although, like a good many other pleasures, it has
+lost its irresistible fascination. But I shall enjoy seeing you catch
+the gambling fever.”
+“I’m not very susceptible to microbes, but I don’t doubt Mrs. Blake
+will gamble the clothes off her back. That would be the good old
+Montana style.” And she told him something of life in Butte before it
+indulged in one of its spasms of exterior reform, and of the present
+life on The Flat.
+“I must see your Butte,” he said enthusiastically. “An English friend
+of mine has a ranch in Wyoming, and I may go out there next year.”
+Ora stood this until the fish had been removed; then she emerged
+conclusively from the cold and nervous apathy that had possessed her
+for several days, and began to sparkle. Ida was no match for her
+when she chose to exert herself, for that native product only really
+shone when able to employ her own rich vocabulary. She subsided
+with a smile and devoted herself to the excellent dinner, while Ora
+entertained their fastidious host with bright little stories of the
+adventures they never failed to experience, being two young women who
+travelled with their eyes and ears wide open. Valdobia, now satisfied
+that he had recaptured the interest of his lady and been in a measure
+forgiven, gave her all his attention; although not a man disposed to
+conversational exertion, he took pains to interest her in return. They
+discussed the news of the day and the latest books; and his deference
+to her opinions was very flattering, although he did not permit a
+flash of his eyes to betray his passionate delight at being once more
+with this woman whom he thought lovelier and more desirable than ever.
+Ora wore a blue velvet suit, not too dark, and a little hat of the
+same shade with a long feather that nestled in her warm ashen hair.
+Her cheeks were as pink as her lips, and she held her chin up as if
+drinking in the elixir of her native air. She looked very young and
+wholly without guile.
+She continued to enchant him until they were in the Bristol, and the
+lift stopped at the first floor. Then she abruptly bade him good-night,
+and ascended to her room, while the others went into the smoking-room
+and ordered coffee at one of the smaller tables.
+“Well?” said Ida, smiling. “I’m not the sort that talks in circles
+except when I’m on parade. I’m glad you’ve come. Ora was fearfully down
+about something. I believe she likes you better than any man she has
+met over here. A little flirtation will do her no end of good.”
+Valdobia coloured. He was as practical as most Italians, but by no
+means given to the direct method of speech with women. Love simplifies
+among other things, however, and after a moment he put down his cup and
+looked her straight in the eyes.
+“I think I shall take you into my confidence,” he said. “I know that
+you are honest and that I can trust to your discretion----”
+“You bet.”
+Ida relaxed her spine with her speech and settled herself comfortably.
+“And you could give me great assistance. I want to persuade your
+friend--may I call her Ora to you? It is a beautiful name and I have
+said it so often to myself----”
+“Ora goes.”
+“I want to persuade Ora to divorce her husband and marry me.”
+“Aw--that is--Good Lord!” Ida sat up straight and nearly dropped her
+cup. “That’s a large order.”
+“Rather. But I--now--want nothing less. I am sick of the other sort of
+thing, even if she were not too good for it. I want to marry--and she
+is the only woman I ever have wanted to marry.”
+“Hm. You Italians haven’t the name of being the best husbands in the
+world. How long would you be faithful to her?”
+“I have no intention of ever being anything else.”
+“That’s what they all say--think, no doubt.”
+“I shall be.” He spoke with intense conviction.
+“Well, perhaps--you’ve lived your life. I should think you men would
+get mighty sick of dancing about and never coming to anchor. But
+divorce? There’s Mark, you know.”
+“Her present husband?”
+“Yes, and a rattling good fellow. He married Ora when she didn’t know
+which way to turn, and she is really grateful to him, and as fond of
+him as if he were her own brother. I don’t think she’ll turn him down.”
+“Women have been known to desert their brothers before this! I mean to
+make her love me, and if I do--how she could love a man!--I fancy I can
+persuade her.”
+“I like Mark and I don’t want to see him thrown down. He’s not what you
+might call in love with Ora--he got discouraged pretty early in the
+game. But he’s fond of her and proud of her, and he has ambitions. She
+could help him a lot.”
+Valdobia lit another cigarette.
+“Better have a liaison and get over it. Then he’ll never know, and what
+men don’t know don’t hurt them.”
+“I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean to marry her. Will you help me
+or not?”
+“Ora’d look fine all right in that old palace of yours. It would suit
+her a long sight better than Butte, or even Washington--let alone
+Helena; Mark wouldn’t mind a bit being Governor of Montana. Have you
+got a castle in the country?”
+“I have several.”
+“Fine! I’d visit you every year.”
+“No one would be half as welcome.”
+“I’ve been away from America so long and seen so much, and Butte seems
+so far away, that I’ve kind of lost my bearings. If you’d come over
+there and lay your siege, I guess I’d fight you to the last ditch.”
+“Permit me to remind you that we are in Italy, a state several
+centuries ahead of yours in civilisation, even if we lack your facile
+divorce laws. I know something of Mr. Blake from Mrs. O’Neil. Can you
+picture Ora finishing her life with him?”
+“No, I can’t, and that’s a fact. I wonder there hasn’t been a grand
+bust-up before this. It will come some day. Why not now?”
+“Quite so.”
+“And Mark could get a dozen girls to suit him better, make him nice and
+comfy. He’ll never get any real companionship out of Ora, fine as she’s
+always treated him. A man like that needs a running mate.”
+“I shall waste none of my mental energy in sympathy for Mr. Mark Blake.
+American husbands, so far as I have been permitted to observe, are
+accustomed not only to being deserted for months and even years at a
+time, but to periodical divorce.”
+“It’s not quite as bad as that, but Mark has the elasticity of an india
+rubber ball, and that’s a fact.”
+“Good. Will you help me?”
+Ida hesitated an instant longer, then, dimly conscious that her answer
+in a measure was dictated by a profound instinct she made no attempt to
+define, exclaimed, “It’s a go. I believe it will be all for the best.
+Shake.” And she gave his hand a hearty grasp.
+“You are a brick,” he murmured, with a sensation of gratitude he had
+rarely experienced. “But there is one thing more. Please give her no
+hint of this, for the present at least. Tell her, and make her believe
+it, that I have not come here to trouble her, that she need never fear
+to trust herself alone with me. Tell her that I only want to enjoy her
+society and make things pleasant for her.”
+“Right you are. Ora’s not the sort you can rush. But don’t overdo it
+and make her think you’ve altogether got over it. Sometimes that piques
+and works out all right and sometimes it don’t. She’s as proud as
+Lucifer and might get over her fancy for you while she was still mad.”
+“You do know your sex! I’ll use all the art I’ve ever acquired.”
+“Respectful devotion without humility, and pained self-control. That’s
+your lay.”
+He laughed heartily. “We’ll drift for the present.”
+“Well, now, drift out. I want to go up and sound her. I’m simply
+expiring to know what she’s thinking about at the present moment.”
+XXXIII
+When Ida reached her room she put her ear to the closed door leading
+into Ora’s, and heard the scratch of the hotel pen.
+“May I come in?” she asked softly.
+There was a rattle of paper, the snap of a trunk lid, and then Ora said
+in tones as dulcet, “Come in, dear.”
+Ida entered and found Ora extended on the sofa.
+“What did you run off like that for?” she asked, as she selected the
+least uncomfortable of the chairs in the fresh and artistic but hardly
+luxurious room. “The poor man was as glum as a funeral until he’d had
+two cups of coffee and several cigarettes.”
+“I was tired. And I really think he has followed you.”
+“You don’t think anything of the sort. His heart was in his patent
+leathers when he met us, and I just tided him over. He gave me a
+message for you. Shall I deliver it?”
+“Why not?” asked Ora languidly.
+“He wants me to impress you with the fact that he’s not come here to
+make love to you, just to enjoy your exhilarating society----”
+“Is he over it?” Ora’s eyes flashed upward.
+“Not exactly, but he has no intention of making any more breaks, and
+being cut off from the solace of your company now and then--principally
+now, I guess. He’s got to see you or go off to India and shoot tigers.
+But he’s really much nicer than I had any idea of, and is anxious to
+give us a good time. Life is a desert, kid, with all the men we know in
+the next town. Men were invented to amuse us, so do continue to thaw.
+You did bravely when you got started, and no harm will be done. If you
+can’t fall in love with him you can’t, and he’s prepared to take his
+medicine. He’s a good sport. A man like that can behave himself when he
+sets his mind to it.”
+“Is he indulging in the hope that I can be made to care for him?”
+“Men are so conceited that they always hope for the best. But he’ll
+not worry you, that’s the point. It will be fine to have him pilot us
+about; perhaps he’ll get us inside of one of those old palaces in the
+Via Garibaldi. And he’ll take us to Monte Carlo. How do you feel about
+it?”
+“I don’t care whether he goes or stays, but on the whole I am rather
+glad he is here. He has brains and I like to talk to clever men that
+have seen the world.”
+“And don’t keep me hitched to your elbow all the time, for mercy’s
+sake. I hope he’ll dig up some friend of his here who will beau me.
+Give him a chance and remember he is a gentleman and has passed his
+word.”
+“Is this a plot?” Ora laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t bore you any
+more than I can help. I fancy I am quite safe, for he never really
+can see me alone, as we have no salon here. Besides, in long days of
+sight-seeing he’ll no doubt recover, and we shall become merely the
+best of friends.”
+“That’s what I’m figuring on. Now, cut out those love letters and come
+down to earth.”
+Ora sat up in her indignation. “Love letters? I’ve not written a line
+of love.”
+“What in the name of goodness do you write about then to this lover in
+the air?”
+“Oh, I just--_talk_--about everything that interests me--the things
+one says to a familiar spirit--that is if there were such a thing--but
+otherwise has to keep to oneself always.”
+“And you don’t call them love letters, because you leave out the
+‘darlings’ and ‘dears’? Good thing the man will never see them.
+Good thing for more reasons than one. Men hate long letters. If I’d
+disobeyed orders and inflicted Greg, I never would have got that house
+and the extra ten thousand.”
+“And yet he was in love with you once?”
+“Thought he was. Just had the usual attack of brain fever men always
+get when they can’t have the girl they want without marrying her.
+Lasted about a month. Greg cares too much for other things for any
+woman to last more than a few minutes in his life, anyway. Just the
+husband for me.”
+Ora was swinging one foot and looking at the point of her slipper.
+“I shan’t destroy those letters,” she said finally, “because they have
+meant something to me that nothing in this life ever will again. But
+I’ll write no more.”
+       *       *       *       *       *
+They remained in Genoa for ten days longer. Valdobia, who had taken
+rooms at the Miramare, gave them a dinner and they met several of his
+Genoese friends, but none of the men was blest with Ida’s critical
+approval. Her demand for the admiration of men was merely a part of her
+insolent pride in her beauty and magnetism and her love of power; she
+had little natural coquetry, and wasted no time on a man who bored her
+or was not “worth while.” She particularly hated soft dark eyes, and
+the two unfortunate young scions of the aristocracy of Genoa invited
+by Valdobia, had peculiarly lovely orbs that they rolled exceedingly.
+But it was a merry party, for no people can be gayer than the Genoese,
+and they played baccarat until two in the morning; a new experience
+for the Americans. During the hours devoted to the game Ida had the
+satisfaction of observing that two pairs of flaming dark eyes had
+apparently forgotten the existence of woman. Even Valdobia, who held
+the bank twice and lost a good deal of money, became very keen on the
+table, although he kept Ora beside him and taught her all that one can
+learn of a game of chance. The stakes ran very high toward the end,
+Valdobia lost several thousand francs, and Ora five hundred. She would
+have lost more, no doubt, for she found it an interesting and exciting
+experience, but Valdobia dictated her stakes, and she meekly obeyed.
+Ida, who had been wary, came out even.
+“You don’t catch me dropping good money when I don’t get something good
+enough in return,” she announced as they entered her room at the hotel.
+“It’s fun all right, but like most things that are off on a side-track
+from your main purpose in life, just to be nibbled at. I prefer bridge
+anyhow.”
+“Do you? I think I like the game of chance. I don’t mind losing----”
+“Well, I do. It made me sick to see you lose five hundred francs, and
+if it hadn’t been for Valdobia you’d have lost as much more. I couldn’t
+sleep a wink if I’d lost a hundred plunks.”
+Ora laughed. “It would be great fun to see you really excited and
+carried away about something. I hope you will have visions of sudden
+wealth at Monte Carlo and forget the world.”
+“Not much!” said Ida contemptuously. “I’ll be rich, all right, but
+it’ll be because I take no chances. I knew whom I was marrying, and
+he’ll make the millions. You’ll never see me spend a cent unless it
+brings in good interest, like clothes, and tips, and entertaining.
+And the only thing that could excite me would be if Amalgamated got
+the hill, and Greg had to go to work to make his fortune as a mining
+engineer. But I’m not the kind to get wrinkles worrying. Lord! Don’t
+the people in this town ever go to sleep?”
+Their windows were close to the Via Venti Settembre, although on a
+short side street. It is possible that the afternoon throngs are
+replaced by a different set in the evening, and these again by lovers
+of the night; but certain it is that the more inviting of the streets
+are rarely deserted until dawn, and the later the revellers the
+more noisy they are; following a universal law of nature. When the
+light-hearted Genoese has sung all his songs to the stars and chattered
+at the top of his voice for several hours, he stands still and screams.
+The girls put their heads out of the window, wondering if anyone were
+being murdered below. A group of young men were standing in a circle
+and outscreaming one another.
+Ida slammed the long windows together, fastened the catch and covered
+them with the heavy shutters. “Me for beauty sleep,” she said; “I like
+air all right, but I like quiet better. Good night.”
+Ora left her window open and lay thinking for a long time. She liked
+the new excitement of gambling, and she was divided between regret
+and gratitude that for the last five days she had enjoyed thoroughly
+the society of the man who would have been the chief exponent of
+the type she admired had he possessed more primitive strength of
+personality; had he been obliged to develop his native forces in a
+fierce battle with life instead of having been from, birth one of her
+favourites. But he was a man, brave, unsoftened by luxury, quick, keen,
+resourceful, modern to his finger-tips, an almost perfect companion.
+What more could any woman ask? Ora wondered just what it was she did
+ask. She felt very grateful to him, however. Her regret was that her
+unreal life seemed to be over, or slept profoundly when she perversely
+and tentatively summoned it. That life had been terrible in its
+intensity, only retreating now and again when real events crowded,
+or she deliberately tried to interest herself in a new and charming
+personality. But all men sooner or later faded to the transparency of
+wraiths beside the vital figure that dominated her imaginative life.
+Would Valdobia accomplish the miracle? At least he gave her peace for
+the moment. She fell asleep smiling and deliberately thinking of him.
+XXXIV
+On the following day they lunched at a large restaurant opposite
+the Bourse, a favourite resort of the two girls; it amused them to
+watch the keen clever business men of Genoa at their midday meal in
+leisurely conversation and enjoyment of their excellent food and wine;
+contrasting them with the American who took five minutes for lunch,
+achieving dyspepsia instead of nutriment, and possibly accomplishing
+less than a race which has been commercial and acquisitive since the
+dawn of its history. There is little real poverty in Genoa and great
+wealth.
+They had come too late to secure one of the tables overlooking the
+Piazzi Defarrari, and were facing the windows, at one of the longer
+tables, when Valdobia, who sat opposite, rose with a word of apology
+and went behind them to greet a man with a pleasant English voice.
+“Lord John Mowbray,” whispered Ida. “He’s all right, but, lord, I’ll be
+glad to get back to a country where a few men are plain mister.”
+Nevertheless, as the Englishman bent over her with a delighted word of
+greeting, she lifted her heavy eyes to his with the expression of one
+whose long suppressed hopes have blossomed at last.
+“I wish I could join you,” he said ruefully, “but I am with a party of
+friends.”
+“Get rid of them after lunch,” murmured Ida, “and come with us. We
+are going to explore all those interesting little streets down in the
+gulch--that is to say the ravine, or whatever it was once--and it would
+be jolly to have you along.”
+“I will,” he said, with fervour, “and I know what a gulch is. My
+brother is ranching in Wyoming, and I may join him there in a few
+months. I believe he also has interests in Butte.”
+“Good! We’ll begin to get friendly right now. So long.” Valdobia
+returned to his chair, and she asked, “Is he a brother of your Wyoming
+friend?”
+“He is, and no doubt we’ll go out together. Your Northwest must be the
+realest thing left in the world.”
+“It’s that, all right. And it will be no end of fun having you out
+there!” She smiled sardonically, and Ora coloured and moved restlessly.
+She was vaguely aware of a new drama unfolding, and had no wish to
+analyse it.
+Mowbray, to Ida’s satisfaction, not only deserted his friends after
+luncheon, but permitted them to go on to Rome without him and lingered
+in Genoa. He was a fair well set-up young Englishman, with a nonchalant
+manner and an inflammable heart. Ida had met him at a country house and
+amused herself “landing him,” but as she had left England immediately
+after, and hunting had claimed all his ardours, she neither had seen
+nor heard from him since. Although she meant to keep him at her elbow
+as long as he served her purpose, she knew him to be a shy youth under
+his natural buoyancy and quick intelligence, and did not disturb her
+placid mind with visions of “scenes.” On the whole she liked Englishmen
+better than any of the men she had met in Europe, for they had more
+pride and self-control where women were concerned; if things went
+deeper with them they were less likely to offend her cold purity with
+outbursts of passion: which, she confided to Ora, “made her sick.”
+To her delight Valdobia took them one afternoon to call on an elderly
+relative who lived in one of the great palaces of the Via Garibaldi.
+They were escorted up to the top floor; the rooms on the other
+_pianos_ were either closed or emitted the chill breath of the tomb.
+Their destination was a large lofty room, inadequately heated by a
+stove in one corner; their noble hostess was fortified against the
+cold by several shawls and a foot-warmer. She had invited three other
+aristocratic relics in to look at “the Americans,” and, although the
+principessa and her friends were more polite than they would have been
+to intruding bourgeoises of their own country, it was apparent that
+they could find little to say to two young women from a land of which
+they had a confused and wholly contemptuous apprehension. They knew
+that its chief title to fame was its original discovery by a Genoese,
+that the lower classes emigrated to it a good deal, and that many
+American women, who spent far too much money on their clothes, visited
+Europe and occasionally married above them. More than this they neither
+knew nor cared to know. So far as they were concerned new countries did
+not exist.
+Conversation languished. Ida was suppressed, and divided between a
+desire to laugh and to scream. Ora, with a heroic effort, talked about
+the mistake the average American made in seeing so little of Genoa;
+but, having laid aside her furs out of politeness, she was shivering,
+and unable to drink the strong coffee which immediately succumbed to
+the temperature of the room.
+She sent an appealing glance to Valdobia, who was smiling to himself.
+Lord John, who had been honoured by a chair beside his hostess, treated
+with the consideration due his ancient lineage, was delivering himself
+of spasmodic clauses, with one eye on Valdobia.
+“Jimminy!” whispered Ida, who now felt quite at home with her fellow
+conspirator, “if you don’t get us out of this quick I’ll have
+high-strikes, and Ora’ll get a cold and be laid up for a week. I always
+keep her in bed when she has a cold.”
+Valdobia rose instantly. “We have an engagement in half an hour,” he
+said to his mother’s second cousin. “Perhaps you will permit me to show
+these ladies over the palace?”
+“Oh, do!” exclaimed Mowbray, acting on instinct, for he was too cold
+and too unnerved to think. “I’d like jolly well to see it myself; must
+be rippin’.”
+The permission was given with some graciousness, and the party bowed
+themselves out. As they descended the grand staircase, they heard a
+buzz of voices behind them, as of several elderly ladies talking at
+once.
+“We’d be roasting on red-hot coals this minute if there were any in
+that refrigerator,” said Ida, “but I don’t care so long as we are going
+to see the real part of the palace.”
+An aged major domo showed them through the magnificent reception rooms,
+built for entertaining a proud and gorgeous aristocracy in the days
+when Genoa was known throughout Europe as “La Superba.” They were hung
+with tapestries or cordova leather, and filled with priceless pictures,
+porcelains, enamels, gold and silver ware, and massive furniture.
+Valdobia told them dramas sentimental and tragic which had been
+enacted within the walls of the historic house. But they had to stamp
+about to avoid a chill, and were glad to emerge into the warmer air of
+even the narrow street.
+“Well,” announced Ida, as they walked rapidly out of the Via Garibaldi
+into the broad sunshine of the Piazza delle Fontane Marose, “if
+that’s a sample of your ancient aristocracy no more of it in mine. My
+curiosity is satisfied for good and all. Why on earth don’t they live
+like human beings?”
+“Or steam-heated Americans?” asked Valdobia, smiling. “Console yourself
+with the assurance that you are the only Americans that have ever
+crossed that threshold.”
+“It doesn’t console me one little bit, and I feel pneumonia coming on.
+Let’s walk as fast as we know how!” And accompanied by the willing
+Englishman she started off with a stride that soon left the others far
+behind.
+“It is true,” said Valdobia disgustedly, “that this older generation
+does not know how to live, not in any sense. They possess the greatest
+wealth in Italy, and they hoard it as if poverty stared them in the
+face. They have only to turn on the electric lights once a week and
+provide a simple supper to make Genoa one of the most delightful cities
+in Europe, but they won’t even do that. They have the finest jewels
+in Italy and never wear them except on the rare occasions when the
+King and Queen visit Genoa and command them to the royal palace. Thank
+heaven there is a younger set, equally well born, that live in the new
+apartment houses or in those villas up on the hills, and are neither
+too economical nor too antiquated in their ideas to enjoy life. Those
+old people are divided up into intimate little sets and spend their
+lives gossipping about the rest of Genoa or talking of the past. But I
+do hope you did not take cold.”
+“I didn’t, and I really enjoyed it!” said Ora, smiling mischievously.
+“I amused myself thinking what would happen if I told our uncomfortable
+hostess that my father’s sister had married a Roman relative of her
+husband; but I wouldn’t have relieved the situation for the world. I
+suppose they are fumigating themselves.”
+“I don’t doubt it. They think they are aristocratic and are merely
+provincial.”
+“How different you are!” Ora looked at him admiringly. “One hardly
+could believe that you belonged to the same race.”
+“I don’t. I am a Roman, and a citizen of the world. No doubt you, too,
+have a root that runs back into the dark ages, but today is all that
+counts with us. I mean that in more senses than one!” And, although he
+smiled, he gave her a quick side-glance.
+“I hope so. I am well aware that you are enjoying yourself immensely.”
+Ora felt it quite safe to flirt with him in the open street.
+“Do you like me a little better?”
+“Rather. Friendly companionship is my chief idea of happiness, now that
+I am more or less tired of books.”
+“Is it? May it be my good fortune to initiate you into a higher! You
+have everything to learn!”
+“Have I? I wonder!”
+“What do you mean by that? Have you ever been in love?”
+“Not the least little bit!”
+“You said that rather too vehemently. It is my turn to wonder.” This
+time he looked hard at her and his face was grim. He had a way of
+setting his jaw that reminded her of the man whose haunting memory had
+made her alternately happy and miserable during many long months. She
+looked away hastily.
+“The kind of love you mean I have not the very least knowledge of. You
+must believe that.”
+“Of what other kind, then?”
+“Oh, all women dream, you know,” she said lightly. “They have a sort of
+ideal that consoles them for missing the realities of life. You come
+quite close to it,” and once more she sparkled her eyes at him.
+“I have no intention of letting you flirt with me,” said Valdobia
+calmly. “My flirting days are over. I shall remain the best of your
+friends until you love me or send me to the other end of the world.”
+“Well, don’t become serious and spoil everything.”
+“I shall not lose my head, if that is what you mean,” he said drily. “I
+find the present state of affairs very pleasant. Let us overtake the
+others and go for a drive.”
+XXXV
+“Well,” said Ora, when she and Ida had returned to the hotel to dress
+for dinner, “did you have a queer feeling when you were prowling
+through those dim old rooms, furnished three or four hundred years ago,
+and the scene of all sorts of romance and tragedy?”
+“I had a queer feeling all right. Had visions of rheumatism, sciatica,
+pneumonia, and a red nose for a week. I suppose those wonderful velvet
+gowns they wore--in pictures, anyhow--were padded inside, and they
+slept in them; didn’t take them off all winter. If I lived in one of
+those palaces today I’d surely lose all my good American habits.”
+“Didn’t you have any haunting sense of mystery--of having been there
+before?”
+“Nixie! No wonder I murdered if I ever was. However,” she added
+thoughtfully, “there’s no telling what I might have felt if they’d had
+a furnace in the house. There was something wonderful about it, all
+right--being in those musty old rooms, that fairly smelt of the past. I
+guess they’ll haunt me as some of those Roman palaces have that are not
+shown to the public. But don’t put weird ideas into my head, Ora. They
+don’t gee with Butte. The severely practical is my lay.”
+“Don’t you think there could be romance and tragedy in Butte?”
+“Oh, plenty of shooting, if you mean that; and mixing-up. But people
+don’t stay jealous long enough to get real tragic about it; they just
+get a divorce. We’ve improved on daggers and poisoned bowls and rings,
+and the rest of it. Good old Butte!”
+They all dined at the Bristol that night, and soon after nine o’clock
+had the smoking-room to themselves. Ida, indeed, carried Mowbray off
+into the reading-room. Ora sighed as she found herself alone with the
+handsome distinguished Roman of the type that even in minor exponents
+so often compelled her response. Why didn’t she love him? He was
+proving himself the ideal companion. There was apparently no question
+to which he had not given some thought, and he knew far more about the
+subjects that appealed to her than she did herself. They discussed
+the ever-fascinating sexual problems impersonally, delicately, and
+exhaustively, a feat in itself, an experience Ora never had enjoyed
+before; for while it drew them together it apparently neither disturbed
+Valdobia nor altered his attitude toward her. His analyses of politics
+and of the fashionable authors of the day were the acutest she had
+heard or read, and he enlarged her knowledge of the world by his
+anecdotes of life in the different capitals of Europe that he knew so
+well. He could be personal without egotism, and his sense of humour was
+keener than her own. While he treated her ideas and criticisms with
+deference he forced her to look up to him and to feel only pleasure in
+his masterful mind and great experience.
+Tonight he made her talk about herself; and, artfully beating about her
+life’s most significant chapter, she expressed herself with a freedom
+and veracity which she found another novel and fascinating experience;
+her confidences to Ida were superficial and sporadic. She could feel
+his sympathy and understanding flow toward her, although he uttered
+no sentimental platitudes, and let only his eyes express a little
+of what he felt. But for the hour she glowed with a sense of utter
+companionship, her mind was stimulated to the pitch of excitement; she
+caught herself wishing that they could have these long intimate talks
+for the rest of their lives, and that he would sometimes hold her hand
+to complete the sense of perfect understanding.
+When they parted at midnight and she walked slowly up the stairs
+alone--Ida had dismissed Mowbray an hour since--she sighed again.
+Why didn’t she feel the pull? What was the nature of that mysterious
+current that seemed to vibrate between two people only out of the
+world’s billions, and was quite independent of mental identities?
+Certainly passion was not the only source. If she had been free and
+never had met Gregory Compton she would have married Valdobia and given
+him all he craved; for his magnetism was by no means confined to his
+brain. Why could not she love him as it was? She had not been the
+heroine of one of those passionate love affairs that leave a woman
+cold for several years, perhaps for ever. The intensity of emotion she
+had experienced during these months in Europe had been one-sided, a
+mere madness of the imagination. She had yet to realise that a woman
+can live more profoundly and completely with a man in her imagination
+than when in daily contact with his discouraging weaknesses, his
+inability to reach her impossible standard, and impinged upon by the
+disintegrating forces of daily life.
+Such women as Ora Blake, endowed with a certain measure of creative
+imagination, yet spending their maturing years unnaturalised citizens
+in a cross-section of life which barely brushes their aloofness in
+passing, develop as unnormally as those that cultivate this exotic
+garden of the mind for fame and fortune. If they find a mate while the
+imagination is still as young as their years, these highly organised
+women, with every sense and faculty keenly alert, and stimulated by
+mental contact as others may be by drugs and wine, have the opportunity
+at least to be the happiest beings on earth. If they marry a brute,
+or are forced to fight the world for bread, a wide channel is dug in
+the brain through which flow the normal and crowding thoughts of the
+average, commonplace, adaptable woman; which is perhaps the best of all
+educations for life.
+But Ora had married a kind prosaic man who soon learned to let her
+alone, and kept her in a comfort that burdened her days with leisure.
+If she had been unimaginative no harm would have been done. She either
+would have grown fond of her essential husband and become a domestic
+angel, or consoled herself with society and bridge. But, misplaced in
+life, she belonged to the intellectual aristocracy of the earth, who
+are the loneliest of its inhabitants, unless they can establish an
+invisible bond with their fellow-beings by offerings from that mental
+garden which is at once their curse and their compensation for the
+doubtful gift of life.
+Ora was too indifferent to the world to care to weave this gossamer
+bridge, and had grown accustomed to mental solitude. But she had
+never placed any curb on her imagination. In the days when her only
+solace was books it enabled her to visualise the _mise-en-scène_ of
+the remote or immediate past, the procession of the traveller, or the
+abstractions of science; as if she were in one of those theatres
+where the great modern manager threatens to atrophy what imagination
+is left in the world. It even enabled her to enjoy fiction whose scene
+was a land of which she had no personal knowledge; a rare gift in the
+American, whose demand for familiar settings and characters keeps our
+literature commonplace. And she could at will shut her eyes and wander
+in Europe when Butte became insufferable.
+Her surrender to the obsession of Gregory Compton had been gradual;
+she had fought it, not only out of loyalty to her husband and her
+friend, but because the future menaced terrors against which she had no
+desire to pit her strength. But she had finally cast defiance to the
+future, and dismissed her phantom loyalty with a shrug. Mark no doubt
+had consoled himself for her defection long since; to Ida a husband
+was a money-maker pure and simple. She herself would never see Gregory
+Compton again if she could avoid it; or, if life took her inevitably
+back to Butte, no doubt her infatuation would have been cured by mental
+satiety, and she would be able to greet him with the indifference that
+is ever the portion of the discarded lover.
+Having arrived at this reasonable conclusion, she had dismissed
+cynicism, cowardice, and qualms, to limbo, and entered upon one of
+those exalting, tormenting, incredibly sweet, and profoundly depressing
+mental love affairs, which, lacking the element of comedy inevitable in
+all actual relations between men and women, obsess the mind and detach
+it from life.
+After she parted from Valdobia, puzzled and wistful, she recalled one
+week during which she had been completely happy. Ida was visiting
+friends uncongenial to herself, and she had gone alone to Bruges. In
+that ancient city of almost perfect beauty, she had given the wildness
+in her nature uninterrupted liberty. She had written letters that no
+woman yet has sent to a man without regretting it, for in this stage
+of man’s progress, at least, he wants little of the soul of woman. It
+is possible that the women who live in their imaginations are the most
+fortunate, after all, for they arbitrarily make man the perfect mate
+he possibly may be some centuries hence. At all events Ora imagined
+Gregory Compton with her unremittingly, deliberately ignoring the
+depression that must descend upon her when once more companioned by his
+wife. It had seemed to her that her step had never been so buoyant,
+her body so light. People had paused to stare at the beautiful young
+American with her head in the air looking as if she were about to
+sing. It had been a wonderful, an almost incredible experience, and
+she never had been able quite to recapture it even when alone in the
+night. But she had wondered sometimes if life held any happiness as
+real as that had been, and she wondered again as she switched off her
+light and flung herself into the bed that had witnessed so much despair
+before Valdobia had appeared and put a quietus on her imagination.
+She wondered also if the passion of the soul were so much greater
+than the common experience of man and woman that its indulgence must
+forever make life itself unreal. She felt that this question threw some
+light on her problem, then dismissed the subject peremptorily. She
+might regret that extraordinary love affair, with its terrors and its
+delights, but she would bury it once for all; and she fell asleep with
+the wise remark:
+“What fools we are! Oh, lord, what fools!”
+XXXVI
+After this she discarded what was left of her crust, and emerged like
+a butterfly. The present was delightful, she would enjoy it without
+analysis or retrospect. She met several clever and interesting men,
+but had eyes for no one but Valdobia. They explored Genoa until they
+knew it almost as well as the natives, spending hours down in the long
+twisted streets, so narrow that no vehicle had ever visited them, and
+swarming like the inside of an anthill. Harrowing adventures were
+impossible, for the Genoese masses if discourteous are neither a
+lawless nor an impertinent race. Ora and Ida might have roamed alone,
+and been unmolested save by the enterprising shopkeepers that dealt in
+filigree. They rode over the steep hills in the trams, and took long
+motor drives in the brilliant winter sunshine to the picturesque towns
+and villages down the Riviera. Then, on a Saturday morning, they bade
+good-bye to the ancient city and took the train for Monte Carlo.
+The girls established themselves in a small hotel opposite the Casino
+Gardens, the men in the great hotel that lies between the Casino and
+the International Sporting Club.
+“I suppose we really should have sent for Lady Gower,” said Ora,
+doubtfully, as they hooked each other up for dinner. “It’s stretching
+the point rather to come to a place like Monte Carlo with two men.
+We’ll be sure to run into a dozen people we know.”
+“Oh, bother! I love the idea of feeling real devilish for once.
+Besides, anything goes at Monte Carlo, and everybody is interested in
+gambling and nothing else. What good would old Norfolk-Howard do us,
+anyhow, asleep on a sofa. She never could keep awake after ten, and
+nobody’d know in those big rooms whether she was there or not. We’re
+Americans, anyhow, and I’m having the time of my life. Lord John is a
+perfect dear.”
+“Well, at least I am thankful that you are no longer in a hurry to
+return to Butte.”
+“Butte’ll keep, I guess. The more experiences I take back the
+more they’ll think of me. Gives me backbone to feel a real
+woman-of-the-world. Besides, kid, it’s good philosophy to drink the
+passing moment dry. Amalgamated may bust us any minute. You look
+prettier every day, and I’m not going off either.”
+She wore a severely cut gown of black velvet, the corsage draped with
+coral-coloured chiffon. Her first evening gowns, cut by the ruthless
+Parisian, had caused her many qualms but they had been growing more
+_décolleté_ ever since; and so superb were her neck and shoulders that
+she had ceased to regret her lack of jewels. Ora had refrained from
+buying any, although she longed for sapphires; but she always wore her
+pearls. Tonight her gown was of a misty pale green material from which
+she rose like a lily from its calyx. She still wore her hair massed
+softly on the top of her head, and although not as tall as Ida, and far
+from being as fully developed, was an equally arresting figure. No two
+women were ever more excellent foils, and that may have been one secret
+of their amicable relations.
+They dined with their cavaliers at one of the fashionable restaurants,
+then, after an hour in the Casino rooms, which were not at all to their
+taste, with their ornate walls and dingy crowd, went by means of lifts
+and underground corridors over to the International Sporting Club.
+Valdobia and Mowbray had put them up at this exclusive resort during
+the afternoon and they entered the roulette rooms at once. Here the
+walls were chastely hung with pale grey satin, and all the colour was
+in the company. The long tables were crowded with smart-looking men
+and women of both worlds, although only the ladies that had stepped
+down from ancestral halls dared to show a grey hair or a wrinkle. The
+cocottes were so young and fresh as well as beautiful that to Ora and
+Ida they looked much like girls of their own class. All, young and old,
+were splendidly dressed and bejewelled; and if there was excitement
+in their brains there was no evidence of it in their calm or animated
+faces. They might have been a great house-party amusing themselves with
+some new and innocuous game.
+Our party walked about for a time dividing their attention between the
+spinning balls, the faces of the players, and the gowns of the women;
+even those of the cocottes were not eccentric, although worn with a
+certain inimitable style. Their ropes of pearls were also the longest
+in the room. A number of the most notable men in Europe were present,
+princes of reigning houses, and statesmen high in the service of their
+country.
+In spite of the absence of that feverish excitement which is supposed
+to pervade these gambling rooms of Monte Carlo (and which is absent
+from the Casino even when a man shoots himself and is whisked out), Ora
+wandered about in a curious state of exaltation. The cool splendour
+of the rooms, the atmosphere of high breeding and restraint, the
+gratification of the æsthetic sense at every turn, the beauty of
+the women and the distinguished appearance of the men made it a
+romantic and memorable scene. Notwithstanding the constant clink of
+gold, the monotonous admonitions of the croupiers, it was a sort of
+worldly fairyland, this apotheosis of one of the most perilous of
+human indulgences. These people might be gambling for greed or mere
+excitement, being blasé of other mundane diversions, but they were at
+the same time so frank and so reserved, so pleased and so indifferent,
+that they produced the illusion of sojourning on a plane high above the
+common mortal with his commonplace loves and disasters and struggles
+to exist or shine. No wonder that men came here to forget the burdens
+of state, women Society’s conservatisms or the inconstancy of man. For
+the hour, and the hour generally lasted until four in the morning, they
+lived in a world apart, and a duchess sat next to a cocotte with a
+serene indifference that amounted almost to democracy.
+“I don’t know that romantic is the word I should use,” said Valdobia,
+laughing; Ora had uttered some of her thoughts aloud; “but I think I
+know what you mean. The people that come here can afford to lose; their
+minds are almost as carefully composed as their costumes; they are both
+pleasantly reckless and frivolous; this is their real play-time; the
+world beyond these four walls is obliterated; if they lose they shrug
+their shoulders, and if they win they experience something like a real
+thrill; in short, being soaked in worldliness, it is their only chance
+to feel primitive--for gambling was practised by the most ancient
+tribes of which we have any knowledge. At the Casino most of those
+people are subconsciously wondering how they are going to pay their
+hotel bills and get out of Monte Carlo, calm as they manage to look;
+but here--well, here you see the quintessence of the world’s frivolity.
+No wonder it creates a heady atmosphere. Do you want to gamble?”
+“Of course I do.”
+“Well, put a louis on the red. I’ll follow your stakes. Perhaps we’ll
+bring each other luck.”
+They staked and won, staked and won again, seven times running without
+removing their winnings from the red. Then Valdobia said, “Don’t tempt
+fortune too far. The luck may turn to the green any moment. Suppose we
+try ours _en plein_.” He selected the number 39, and once more they
+won. Ora, her hands full of gold, turned to him with blazing eyes. Her
+cheeks were crimson. Valdobia laughed.
+“You mustn’t look so happy,” he said teasingly, “or these old stagers
+will know that you are what your friend calls a hayseed. Better change
+all this gold into notes.”
+“Notes? I want my gold. Paper never did mean anything to me.”
+“What a child you are--ah! I must leave you for a moment. The Duc----”
+he mentioned a prince of his royal house--“wishes to speak to me. Don’t
+try _en plein_ again. That rarely happens twice. Put a louis at a time
+on the red.”
+He left her. Ora deliberately placed not only her double handful of
+gold on the red, but pushed forward the pile that had accumulated
+before her. Red came up and doubled her winnings. She added to her
+already imposing hillock the gold shoved toward her, and, with a quick
+glance at Valdobia, who was deep in conversation with his prince, took
+a thousand franc note from her châtelaine bag and laid it on top of
+the gold. Once more she won, and met the sympathetic smiles of the
+croupiers, who in the Sporting Club, at least, are very human persons.
+She was about to add another thousand franc note, when Valdobia
+returned. He swept her gold and notes off the red just as _rien ne va
+plus_ sounded above the buzz of conversation behind the tables.
+“What on earth are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I don’t like to see a
+woman gamble like that.”
+Ora pouted and looked like a naughty child.
+“But I want to gamble. Give me my money. What have you to say about it?”
+“I brought you here--and I shall not bring you again if you are going
+to gamble like that old Frankfurt banker over there. Why not follow the
+example of Mrs. Compton, who is decorously putting five franc pieces on
+the green at the next table?”
+“Oh, Ida! I like the sensation of doing big things. You just said we
+enjoyed letting loose our primitive instincts.”
+“Is that the way you felt? Well, here are three louis. Stake one at a
+time. I shall change the rest into notes and give them to you at the
+hotel.”
+He kept his eye on her, and she staked her gold pieces one after
+another and lost.
+“Now,” he said, “come into the bar and have a glass of wine or a lemon
+squash. I want to talk to you.”
+They found seats in a corner of the bar behind a little table, and
+Ora demurely ordered a lemonade. “I suppose you are going to scold
+me,” she murmured, although her cheeks were still flushed and her eyes
+rebellious. “What difference did it make? I am not poor, and I had won
+nearly all that I risked, anyhow. You have seen women gamble all your
+life. One would think that you were a hayseed, yourself.”
+“Shall I be quite honest? I fancy I was jealous. For the first time I
+saw you completely carried away. I had hoped to furnish that impulse
+myself!”
+“It is a wonderful sensation,” she said provokingly. “I doubt if
+anything but gambling could inspire it.”
+“Do you?” But he knew that it was no time for sentiment, and asked
+curiously, “Are you so fond of gold? I never saw such a greedy little
+thing.”
+“Remember I’ve walked round over gold for the best part of my life, and
+have a mine of my own. It fascinates me, but not because I care much
+about riches--I like the liberty that plenty of money gives; that, to
+my mind, is all that wealth means. But I loved the feeling of being
+possessed, of being absolutely reckless. I should have liked to know
+that my whole fortune depended upon that spinning ball. That would
+have been worth while! It makes one forget everything--everything!”
+He looked at her with half-closed eyes. “You have a secret chapter in
+your life,” he said. “Some day I shall read it. But I can’t make up my
+mind whether you are a born gambler or not.”
+Ora shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth I shouldn’t care if
+I never saw a gambling table again. I have had the sensation. That is
+enough. I will admit I was rather disappointed not to lose that immense
+stake. Lucky at cards, you know.”
+“And you think you are unlucky in love?” Valdobia laughed, but his face
+was still grim. “How many men have you had in love with you already?”
+“That doesn’t count!”
+He turned pale. “What do you mean by that?”
+“I mean that I don’t believe I am destined to happiness. Don’t you
+think we know our lines instinctively?”
+“I know that you are trying to torment me. You are still excited and
+angry, so I shall not permit your words, significant as they are, to
+keep me awake tonight.” He was smiling again, but she saw the anger in
+his own eyes, and said impulsively:
+“I rather like you better than usual tonight. You have made me do
+something I didn’t want to do, and anger is becoming to you.”
+“The eternal female! Well, God knows, I wouldn’t have you abnormal.
+What is this?”
+A page was standing before the table with a telegram in his hand. “Pour
+M. le Marquis de Valdobia,” he said.
+With a word of apology Valdobia opened the telegram. Ora, watching him,
+saw his face turn white.
+“What is it?” she asked anxiously. “I do hope it is not bad news.” She
+felt a sharp pang at the possibility of losing him.
+He rose and looked at his watch. “My mother is very ill,” he said. “A
+train goes in an hour and ten minutes. I must take it. But there is
+something I want to say to you before I go; I may be detained in Rome.
+Will you get your wrap and come into the gardens for a few moments?”
+“I am so sorry,” murmured Ora, with real sympathy. “Of course I will
+go.”
+He took her to the cloak-room. “Wait here for a moment,” he said. “I
+must telephone to my man to pack and meet me at the train; and tell
+Mowbray not to look for us later.”
+He left her, and Ora watched the passing couples, trying not to think.
+She was a little frightened, but still too excited to shrink from a
+possible ordeal.
+XXXVII
+He returned in a few moments, and they left the Club House by the main
+entrance and strolled toward the gardens; then he suddenly led her to
+the terrace. There were many people walking in the tropical scented
+park of the Casino, but the digue above the Mediterranean was deserted.
+Monte Carlo can be cold in May but it can be as warm as July in
+February, and the night was mild and beautiful. The sea under the stars
+was almost as blue as by day. The air was very still, although a band
+was playing somewhere, far away. From the other side of the bay came
+the faint humming of an aeroplane. There was to be an aviation meet on
+the morrow, and no doubt one of the airmen was about to make a trial
+flight.
+They sat down on one of the benches, and Valdobia folded his arms, then
+turned and leaned his elbow on the back of the seat and his head on his
+hand.
+“I am not quite in the mood for love-making,” he said, “after the news
+I have received; but I can’t go without letting you know why I followed
+you to Genoa--without some sort of an understanding.”
+Ora looked at him out of the corner of her eye. His face was set and
+determined, but she concluded that he was not the man to be dangerous
+when grieving for his mother.
+“What is it?” she asked softly. “I know, of course, that you--like me.”
+“I love you, and I want to marry you. I wish you to divorce your
+husband and marry me. Don’t give me your final answer now,” he
+continued, as Ora interrupted him. “It is not a question to decide
+in a moment. But while I am gone think it over. You do not love your
+husband. I know all your arguments from your friend. She made them when
+I first gave her my confidence. They don’t weigh with me for a moment.
+You will never spend your life with that man, good as he may be. As for
+obligations, you discharged them long ago. I can make you happy, and I
+believe that you know I can.”
+“I don’t know.” Ora, stunned for a moment, felt thrilled and
+breathless. “Oh, I don’t know!”
+“I have begun to feel sure that you have loved another man, or fancied
+that you loved him. Would it be possible for you to marry him if you
+divorced your husband?”
+Ora hesitated, then answered, “No.”
+“Why is he not your lover?”
+“That would be impossible, even if I would do such a thing, and you
+know I would not.”
+He gave a sharp sigh of relief. “I _felt_ that he had not been. Why is
+it impossible?”
+“There are complications. I cannot explain them. But he could not be
+less to me if he were dead.”
+“Does he love you?”
+Ora hesitated again. “I have sometimes felt--no, of course, it is
+impossible. I let my imagination run away with me, that was all.”
+“You mean that he never told you--that he doesn’t write to you?”
+“I met him only once, and I have never seen his handwriting.”
+“Well, dismiss him from your mind. You have imagination and have
+dreamed, because your demands upon life are very great, greater than
+you know; and oddly enough, considering your opportunities, fruition
+has eluded you. But the time has come for you to live; and you could
+live!”
+Ora looked down at her hands. They were ungloved and looked very white
+and small. Valdobia suddenly covered them with one of his own, and bent
+his face close to hers. She saw that he had forgotten his mother, and
+gave a little gasp.
+“Ora!” he said. “Don’t you know how happy I could make you? I not only
+could teach you love, of which you know nothing, but we could always be
+companions, and you are the loneliest little creature I have ever met.”
+To her astonishment she saw two tears splash on his hand, and winking
+rapidly discovered that they had fallen from her own eyes. As she would
+have detested to see a man cry, she melted further, and whispered,
+“Oh, yes, life with you would be very delightful. I know that. I fancy
+the other man, even if I could marry him, would make me miserable.
+He--American men that amount to anything give their wives very little
+of themselves.”
+“And you would be lonelier still! I have known American women that
+loved their busy husbands--that _seeking_ type. They interested me,
+poor things--rushing madly about trying to fill their lives. If you
+join that sisterhood it will kill you. I am not an idler, for I have
+business interests to which I devote a certain amount of time, but I
+have leisure, and I not only should give you the companionship you have
+craved all your life, but I can offer you the world in all its variety.
+Now dismiss this man, whoever he is, from your mind. Even were I beside
+the question, it is your duty to yourself as a woman of character, not
+a sentimental schoolgirl.”
+“Yes, that is true.”
+“That sort of thing is morbid, besides being quite beneath a woman of
+pride and dignity. But women often romance about some dream-hero until
+they have found the right man. Can you doubt that I am the man for you?
+You were made for Europe, not for America, and for a man that can give
+you everything--everything!”
+“Yes, I know.” She moved restlessly. “If I could only feel just one
+thing more for you! I hardly know what to call it--I like you better
+than anyone in the world. I almost love you. Why don’t I?” Her voice
+was suddenly full of passion and she clasped both of her hands about
+his own. “If you could only make me, I should worship you.”
+He glanced about rapidly. They were quite alone. He put his arm round
+her and she felt it vibrate. His face was flushed and his breath
+short. She could feel his heart thumping against her head, and she
+was fascinated for more reasons than one: she knew that it was many
+years since any woman had roused him to strong emotion, and it was the
+first great passion that had ever been close to her save in her stormy
+imagination. She was enthralled for a moment, and some of the wildness
+in her own nature stirred. But it was too soon, she must have time to
+think. She cast about desperately and found her inspiration.
+“We have been here a long time!” she said hurriedly. “You will miss
+your train. Your mother may be very ill.”
+He dropped his arm, and stood up.
+“You are a woman of infinite resource,” he said. “And no little
+cruelty. Will you consider what I have asked you--seriously?”
+His anger as well as his power to control himself always fascinated
+her, and she also experienced a spasm of contrition. She rose and gave
+him her hand; her eyes were frank and kind.
+“Yes,” she said. “I will consider it, and think of you always--and miss
+you horribly. Will you telegraph to me every day?”
+“Two or three times a day, probably. And don’t think I am really angry
+with you. If you are cruel it is only because you don’t understand. I
+am glad that you do not, for it is only women that have loved greatly
+that have forgotten how to be cruel. Come. I must take you to your
+hotel.”
+PART II
+PART II
+I
+Two weeks later Ora and Ida sailed from Havre. Gregory had cabled, and
+the _Herald_ had published a dramatic account, of the wounding of Mr.
+Mark Blake in the tunnel of his wife’s mine. The engineers’ lease had
+expired and he had closed down the mine temporarily. The sinking of
+the inclined shaft in the “Apex” had proceeded very slowly owing to
+the uncommon hardness of the rock; it would seem that Nature herself
+had taken a hand in the great fight and enlisted for once on the side
+of the weaker power. Although when Osborne and Douglas had turned over
+the mine, their cross-cut almost had reached the point on the vein
+which the new shaft expected to strike, Gregory had risen twice in the
+night and walked along the hill beyond his boundary, reasonably sure
+that all the blasting was not in the shaft, his keen ear detecting
+muffled reverberations slightly to the east and at a greater depth. He
+communicated his suspicions to Mark, and on the following night they
+examined the lock on the Primo shaft house and discovered that it had
+been tampered with. They went down by way of the ladder; and in the
+cross-cut on the chalcopyrite vein they found miners working with hand
+drills. There was a desperate hand-to-hand fight with the manager and
+shift boss; the miners, who were bohunks, proceeding phlegmatically
+with their work.
+The four men had wrestled out into the station at the foot of the
+shaft, where they had drawn their “guns”; each had been wounded, but
+only Mark seriously. He had received a ball in the lung and another
+in the leg. The night was bitterly cold and it was some time before
+Gregory and the two antagonists could get him to the surface. He had
+insisted upon being taken to a hospital in Butte; and, between loss of
+blood, shock, and pneumonia, his condition was precarious.
+The girls, who had left Monte Carlo two days after Valdobia’s sudden
+departure, received the news in Paris, where they were replenishing
+their wardrobes. Ora, torn with remorse, and terrified with vague and
+tragic visions of the future, was in a distracted condition; but Ida,
+although she sincerely lamented the possible demise of her old friend,
+did not lose her head. She gave final and minute orders to tailors and
+dressmakers, instructed them to send the trousseaux in bond directly to
+Great Falls, Montana, devoted a morning to the selection of hats both
+for herself and her friend, and packed all the trunks. Mowbray, always
+willing to be useful, bought their tickets and escorted them to Havre.
+Ida thanked him with something like real warmth as they parted at the
+head of the gangplank, and promised him the “time of his life” when he
+came to Montana in the summer.
+“Now, buck up,” she said, smiling into his disconsolate face; “you know
+I’m not flirting with you. We’re the best of pals. I’ll be glad to see
+you, all right, and perhaps I’ll find a nice little heiress for you.”
+“Oh, don’t!” Mowbray tried to arrange his features for the benefit of
+the passersby. “You know I’m fond of you no end. Why----”
+“Get along now. That’s the last whistle. Good-bye, and write me nice
+gossippy letters. It’s only a few months, anyhow.”
+Mowbray walked down the gangplank with his head in the air, and, as he
+turned on the dock to lift his hat, Ida noticed that his face, whose
+charm was its boyish gayety, looked suddenly older, and almost as
+determined as Valdobia’s.
+“Oh, Lord!” she thought, as she turned away, “men! They’re as alike as
+lead pencils in a box. But I guess I can manage him.”
+Ora stayed in bed for two days; reaction left her physically exhausted
+and she slept most of the time. On the third day Ida peremptorily
+dressed her and took her on deck. A wireless from Gregory, announcing
+that Mark was holding his own, further revived her, and before they
+reached New York another wireless was still more reassuring. A few
+years before, when the ores of Butte Hill were roasted in the open
+and the poisonous fumes were often as thick as the worst of London
+fogs, pneumonia ran its course in twenty-four hours to the grave, but
+in these days the patient had a fighting chance despite the altitude.
+The Butte doctors were experts in pneumonia, so many of the careless
+miners were afflicted, and Mark not only had a sound constitution but
+never had been a heavy drinker. There was every reason to expect him to
+pull through, as Ida assured her friend whenever they were alone; but
+she managed to meet several agreeable people, and kept herself and Ora
+companioned by them throughout the voyage.
+Valdobia was still in Rome; his mother was dying. He had written daily
+to Ora and she had read and reread his letters. They said neither too
+much nor too little; but he was one of life’s artists and he managed
+to pervade them with an atmosphere that was both sweet and disturbing.
+His telegram, when he had read the news of her husband’s misadventure
+in the newspapers, was a masterpiece. If he was unable to grieve over
+the possibility of Mr. Blake’s abrupt removal from a scene where he was
+the one superfluous actor, too well-bred to betray his relief, and too
+little of a hypocrite to be verbose in condolence, his attitude was
+so finely impersonal, and it was so obvious that he knew exactly how
+she felt, that Ora liked him more than ever if only for rousing her
+stricken sense of humour.
+She had thrust his letters and telegrams into the depths of her steamer
+trunk, but after she had made up her mind that Mark would recover (her
+lively imagination picturing him hobbling among the orange groves of
+Southern California while she guided his footsteps and diverted his
+mind), she retrieved the correspondence and read it every night when
+alone in her stateroom. Valdobia’s devotion not only gave her courage,
+but his strong imposing personality stood with a haughty and confident
+menace between herself and Gregory Compton. She refused to think on her
+future, beyond the long convalescence of her husband, but had it not
+been for her meeting with Valdobia and her deliberate installment of
+his image on the throne of her adventurous imagination, she doubted if
+she would have had the courage to return to Montana. As it was there
+were moments when the poignant mental life she had led with Gregory
+Compton reached a long finger from the depths to which it had been
+consigned and sketched his image in her mind as vividly as if he stood
+before her; while her whole being ached with longing and despair. But
+her will was strong; she banished him summarily and reinstated the
+Roman who was so like and so unlike the man compounded of the old world
+and the new in the mortar of the Northwest.
+Ida, with an unexpected delicacy, refrained from curiosity, and
+although she had too much tact to avoid all mention of Valdobia, only
+alluded to him casually. She left Europe out of the conversation as
+much as possible, and amused Ora, when they were alone, with the
+plans of her campaign in Butte. When they reached quarantine Ora was
+horrified to find herself surrounded by reporters. The Paris _Herald_
+had published the story of her mine as well as her picture and Ida’s,
+but they hardly had been sensible of their notoriety until, on the
+steamer, they were among Americans once more. It was manifest that they
+were “big news” in their own country, and Ora fled to her stateroom,
+leaving Ida to face the reporters alone.
+Ida was undaunted; moreover she was quick to seize her first
+opportunity to dazzle Butte. She made herself amiable and interesting
+to the young men, her natural cunning steering her mid-stream, in this
+her first interview: an ordeal in which most novices are wrecked on
+the tropic or the arctic shore. She thanked them as warmly for their
+news that Mr. Blake had left that morning with his doctors and nurses
+in a private car for Southern California, and expected his wife to
+go directly to Los Angeles, as if Ora had not received a wireless to
+that effect an hour before; she modestly told them something of her
+social experiences abroad, answered the inevitable questions regarding
+suffrage, excused Ora, “who was naturally upset”, and expatiated upon
+her happiness in returning to live in Butte. They thought this odd, but
+were so delighted with her mixture of dignity and naïveté that they
+rushed to their respective desks and told the world that the wife of
+Gregory Compton had been the guest of princes and was the handsomest
+woman in America.
+Ora was almost gay at the prospect of going directly to California,
+although she was obliged to make the journey alone. It was early in
+the afternoon when they landed. Ida established Ora in the first
+Overland Limited that left the Grand Central Station, and returned to
+the Waldorf-Astoria, where she had engaged rooms for a month. She had
+no intention of returning to Butte ignorant of New York. Westerners
+of wealth, old and recent, visited New York casually several times
+a year; and not to know it, even with Europe to her credit, stamped
+a woman with the newness of the new-rich who wore all their jewels
+all the time. Ida had seen many women make fools of themselves and
+had no intention of leaving any penetrable spaces in her armour. She
+spent every morning in the shops, or in the establishments of the
+exclusive dressmakers, tailors and milliners that were patronized by
+the fashionable women of Butte and Helena, giving them liberal orders.
+She saw all the new plays, heard the more famous of the opera singers,
+and even attended three symphony concerts. She drove in the Park every
+afternoon or joined the throngs on Fifth Avenue; and she took tea or
+lunch in the different hotels and restaurants devoted to fashion.
+Sometimes she sat in the gangways of her own famous hostellerie,
+recalling with a tolerant smile her early crude ambitions--had
+they died less than a year ago?--to trail her feathers up and down
+Peacock Alley. She wore one of her severest tailored suits upon these
+occasions, and maintained an air of stately detachment that somewhat
+counteracted the always startling beauty of her face and figure. No man
+took his courage in his hand.
+One afternoon she sat longer than usual, for she had set her teeth that
+day and walked through the Metropolitan Museum. She fell to musing,
+and with a more sustained introspection than was her habit, upon the
+changes that had taken place within herself during the past year;
+wondering “how deep they had struck”, if she really were as altered as
+she must appear even to the raking eye of Butte; or if she merely had
+developed her native characteristics while polishing her surface and
+furnishing her mind.
+She also endeavoured to analyse her attitude toward returning to her
+husband, but gave this up, although puzzled that it was not more
+obvious. But her mind was clear on one point. If Gregory desired her
+society he must spend his week-ends in Butte; nothing would induce her
+to return to the De Smet ranch. She had not even a spasm of curiosity
+to see the famous Perch of the Devil Mine.
+II
+Ida was not given to imaginative excursions, but during the three
+days’ journey from New York to Butte, she made no acquaintances,
+resting in the seclusion of her drawing-room; and after she had read
+all the magazines her mind began to people itself. Although the ladies
+of Butte, whom she now regarded as equals, moved along the central
+highway, Gregory was always turning the corners, and she visualised
+him most frequently advancing hurriedly toward the station as the
+train entered--both late, of course. She rehearsed the meeting many
+times, never without a pricking sense of awkwardness, for she now
+fully realised that when a woman and her husband have not communicated
+save on the wire for nearly a year, the first interview is liable
+to constraint. He always had been difficult to talk to. Would he be
+bored if she tried to entertain him as Ora would entertain Mark: with
+such excerpts of their many experiences as a confiding husband might
+appreciate? She never had understood him. Out of her greater knowledge
+of the world and men should she be better able to fathom the reserves
+of that strange silent nature--or did she really care whether she could
+or not? Although she had made up her mind to greet him at the station
+with the warmth of an old friend, and flatter him with her delight in
+returning home, she had not the faintest idea how she should carry off
+the long evening--if the train were on time.
+It was not. Probably no Northwestern train has arrived on time in
+the history of the three railroads. Ida’s train, due at seven in
+the evening, arrived at midnight. Her Pullman was at the end of the
+long dark platform, and as she walked slowly toward the station
+building--which looked like the bunk-house of an abandoned mining camp
+in the desert--searching for someone to carry her hand baggage--porters
+being non-existent in the Northwest--she saw neither Gregory nor
+any other familiar face. For the first time in her life she felt a
+disposition to cry. But as she tossed her head higher and set her
+lips, a young man approached and asked if she were Mrs. Gregory
+Compton. He was a pleasant looking youth, and she was so grateful to be
+called by name that she forgot her new reserve and replied emphatically
+that she was.
+“I am your chauffeur,” he said. “Your new car arrived a few days ago,
+and Mr. Compton ’phoned me to meet you. Have you any hand baggage?”
+Ida indicated her portmanteau and hat box in the dark perspective and
+went on to inspect her car. It was a handsome limousine, lighted with
+electricity, and for a moment she took a childish pleasure in examining
+its fittings. But as the man returned and piled her baggage in front
+she asked irrepressibly:
+“Is Mr. Compton not in Butte?”
+“No, ma’am. He hasn’t been in Butte for weeks. Lively times out at the
+mine, I guess.”
+“And my house? Had I not better go to a hotel?”
+“Oh, the house is all right. Mr. Compton’s secretary ’phoned to an
+agency, and they put in three or four in help. I guess you’ll find
+everything all right.”
+Ida entered her car, but scowled at its luxuries. By this time she
+was “mad clean through.” “The famous American husband!” she thought,
+gritting her teeth. “Best in the world--not. If it’s my horse, my dog,
+my wife with an Englishman, it’s business first last and always with an
+American. European men are courteous whether they mean it or not, but
+Americans only remember to be polite when they have time. Ten months
+and he can’t leave his mine long enough to meet me when I arrive at
+midnight!”
+Her pleasure in returning to Butte had turned as flat as spilt
+champagne. She did not even glance at the gay electric signs and
+midnight activities of Broadway as her car rolled through that
+sleepless thoroughfare toward the West Side. But when her chauffeur,
+who had ignored the speed limit, stopped abruptly before a large house
+of admirable architecture and blazing with lights, her face flushed
+with excitement and she forgot her recalcitrant spouse. The door was
+opened at once and two maid servants ran down the steps. They were
+young, neatly dressed and capped, and it was evident that their service
+was dictated not only by curiosity but by sympathy.
+“Welcome home, ma’am,” one of them, a Swede, said shyly as Ida stepped
+to the pavement. “It’s too bad your train was so late. The cook’s got a
+nice hot supper for you.”
+Ida, who was not easily touched, felt as grateful to these smiling
+girls as to her friendly chauffeur, and for a moment was tempted to
+“come down off her perch” and revel in human companionship. But she
+knew that it “wouldn’t work”; she merely thanked them graciously and
+ascended the wide steps of her new home, that palatial residence of
+cream-colored pressed brick of her unswerving desires. While the maids
+were taking her bags and boxes upstairs, she walked through the large
+rooms of the lower floor. Everything was in the best modern style of
+furnishing, the prevailing tone dim and rich, with Eastern rugs on the
+hardwood floors; French tapestries and carved oak furniture and stained
+glass in the library--also a few books; paler tapestries set in panels
+in the immense drawing-room, and many beautiful pieces of furniture
+carefully selected with an eye to both contrast and mating. Out of
+this room opened a dining-room that looked like a baronial hall, and
+although the Murphys had taken their silverware they had left their
+china, imported from Limoges, and their glass ware, made for them by a
+Venetian firm that had supplied Ida’s grandes dames for thirty years.
+In short it was one of those stately and sumptuous interiors, furnished
+by the best houses in New York, which one associates exclusively with
+the three or four great cities of the United States, and is always
+unwarrantably surprised to find in the newer cities of the West.
+Ida made a pretence of eating her dainty supper, remembered that she
+was now a grande dame and visited the kitchen to say an appreciative
+word to the cook, then ascended to her bedroom divided between anger
+and a depression so foreign to her temperament that she barely
+recognised it for what it was.
+The large upper hall had been fitted up as a billiard room, and with a
+continuous divan broken only by the doors of the bedrooms. Ida threw
+it an appreciative glance, but it merely emphasised the fact that
+there was no man in the house, and she did not linger. Mrs. Murphy,
+evidently a brunette, had furnished her bedroom and dressing-room in
+primrose yellow and much lace. Ida approved both as unreservedly as
+she had the rest of the house, thankful there was nothing to alter;
+like many women she had consummate taste in dress and none whatever
+for house decoration; although unlike most of these disparate ladies
+she was quite aware of her deficiencies. She knew when a room was all
+that it should be, but could not have conceived one of the details,
+much less the unimpeachable combination. The sex instinct teaches
+those subtleties of personal adornment likely to allure the male, and
+arrest the anxious eye of other females, but ancestral brain-cells are
+necessary for the more civilised accomplishment.
+Ida’s eyes fell on the telephone beside her bed and lingered. She
+forgot her beautiful room and the successive throbs of gratified
+ambition, in an overwhelming desire to call up Gregory and tell him
+what she thought of him. But she was a woman in whom calculation
+was stronger than impulse, and in the past year she had learned to
+control her temper, not only because a carefully nourished refinement
+had crowded out some of the weeds of her nature, but because her
+ever-growing intelligence despised lack of self-control in all things.
+So she merely undressed herself, her eyes wandering every few minutes
+to the telephone. It was incredible that he did not ring her up. That,
+at least, would take but a few moments of his precious time.
+However, she fell asleep immediately after her bath, and it was the
+telephone bell that awakened her at eight o’clock. This time she
+frowned at it, for she wanted to sleep; but she sat up, put the
+receiver to her ear and asked languidly: “Well?”
+A strange man’s voice replied: “Is this Mrs. Compton?”
+“Yes. Why am I disturbed so early?”
+“I’m sorry--this is Mr. Compton’s secretary speaking--but Mr. Compton
+told me to call you at eight o’clock. He always comes in for breakfast
+at this time--here he is.”
+“Hello! How are you? What time did you get in?” Gregory’s voice was
+elaborately polite and as eager as any lover’s of yesteryear.
+“Are you interested?” Ida’s heart beat thickly, but her tones were
+crisp. “I arrived at midnight. Really, I expected you to meet me. That
+is generally considered the decent thing to do.”
+“Oh! I’m sorry it was impossible. I can’t leave the mine at present.
+How did you like the house?”
+“I am enchanted with it--and with the limousine. When are you coming
+in?”
+“I can’t say at present. I dare not leave for a moment. You will find a
+deposit to your credit at the Daly bank.”
+“Thanks. Would--shall I run out?”
+“Better not. There is always danger of rows.”
+“But of course I’m wild to see the mine. You forget how famous it is.”
+“Better wait awhile. It really isn’t safe.”
+“Very well. How’s your wound? Where were you hurt, anyhow?”
+“Not worth mentioning, as I cabled you, and I suppose you got my
+telegram in New York saying I was all right again. Sure you got
+everything you want?”
+“I am overwhelmed by all this luxury, and your generosity.”
+“Glad you like it. Has Mrs. Blake gone to California?”
+“She went directly from the steamer. How is Mark getting on. I’ve had
+only notes from Ora.”
+“All right. He doesn’t write but has telegraphed once or twice. He’d
+better stay below several months. Write Mrs. Blake to persuade him to
+take things easy. He had a close call. I can get along without him for
+awhile, but I can’t afford to lose him. Will you see to this?”
+“I’ll write Ora today. She’s in no hurry to return to Butte--was
+delighted at the prospect of going to California, and intends to take
+Mark to Santa Barbara, where she knows a lot of people.”
+“Ah! Good. Well, I must get some breakfast. Amuse yourself.”
+“And you won’t be in for several days?”
+“Afraid not. Good-bye.”
+Ida set the receiver back on the table, but it was some minutes before
+she lay down again. She sat thinking, with compressed lips. Born
+with intuitive knowledge of men, she had, as she once remarked to
+Ora, turned a goodly number of them inside out during the past year.
+Gregory Compton did not intend to live with her again. She knew this
+as conclusively as if his kind matter-of-fact tones had expressed the
+direct message. Before she left home it never had occurred to Ida to
+wonder if her husband still loved her or not, and she had learned to
+accept his consuming masculine interest in matters mineralogic as all
+in the day’s work. Now she wondered if he had ceased to love her then
+or since. That he took no further interest in her as a woman, although
+amiably determined to do his duty as her legal provider, would have
+been almost patent to an imagination as riotous as Ora’s; to Ida,
+practical and clear-sighted, there was not a loophole for delusion.
+In a few moments she relaxed the tension of her body and lay down.
+“Well!” she thought impatiently, “what’s the matter with me, anyhow?
+Isn’t it what I always hopefully looked forward to? Did I ever pretend
+to be anything but resigned--or to be in love with him after the first
+few weeks? I guess I’m spoiled with too much devotion, that’s what.
+Seeing too many men lose their heads. Much their old heads are worth.
+But I guess I don’t like being turned down for once. Goose. It’s my lay
+to cut out pique and sing a song of thanksgiving that I’ve got pretty
+nearly everything I ever romanced about and set my mind on. It’s a
+pretty good old world when things come your way, and women’ll never be
+happy till they learn to put men in the same place that men put us--on
+a handy little side-track. I’ve got a whole parlour car instead of an
+upper berth like some poor devils, so I’ll quit whining. But if there’s
+another woman in the case, let them both look out--that’s all!”
+III
+Ida slept for two hours longer and rose in a philosophical mood. As
+she more than once had remarked to Ora, “nothing in life is just what
+you figured it out beforehand”; and this, one of life’s most unwelcome
+lessons, it had not taken her twenty-six years to learn. She had, in
+fact, accepted and docketed it while women twice her age were nursing
+their illusions.
+She had expected to be met at the station not only by her husband but
+by Ruby and Pearl, to say nothing of reporters. “She had slunk in like
+a nobody,” and her husband declined to feed the fires of her vanity,
+blazing so merrily these last ten months. Never mind. She had the
+genius of quick readjustment and a sharp eye for the next move in the
+great law of compensation.
+“And believe me,” she thought, as she put the finishing touches to her
+smart morning street costume, and taught the admiring Swede how to pin
+on a veil, “the gods have provided the goods pretty liberally, and I
+don’t belong to the immortal order of female jackasses. Nine-tenths of
+women’s troubles, mental and physical, sprout in that hothouse corner
+of their skulls they call imagination. None of it in mine. Let us
+eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Wait till I’m launched in
+Butte. And just wait till I give a dinner party to the second son of an
+English duke. Tra la la!”
+Before the morning was over even philosophy had folded her wings. If
+life had been niggardly yesterday she gave with both hands today. When
+Ida arrived at the bank she was received with exceeding deference by
+the vice-president and informed that he had recently invested two
+hundred thousand dollars in her name, acting on instructions from Mr.
+Compton; and that as a large part of it was in mortgages the interest
+in some cases ran as high as eight per cent. The money had been placed
+in his hands for investment shortly after the great land deal, details
+of which had reached the public ear in due course and greatly added to
+the prestige of Gregory Compton. In fact it had invested his remote
+and ambiguous personality with an almost sinister significance. As
+Ida listened to the story of this transaction (she barely had opened
+a newspaper in New York and knew nothing of it), she found herself
+wondering if it could be true that once she had possessed this man of
+whom even bankers spoke with bated breath. It was patent that they
+stood in awe not only of the rapid and masterly strokes which had
+increased his little patrimony by something over two millions in less
+than a year, but of his colossal luck, his sensational reputation as a
+“winner”, and his open defiance of the greatest of all great trusts.
+It seemed to Ida, as she sat in the vice-president’s office listening
+to his classification of her husband with Marcus Daly, W. A. Clark,
+and F. Augustus Heinze, the three commanding figures heretofore in the
+financial history of Montana, and to predictions that Compton would go
+farther than any one of his predecessors, that she might have known
+Gregory in his extreme youth or in some previous existence; but that
+this man who now not only ranked first in the eyes of all Montana,
+but had focussed the attention of a continent, no longer touched
+her life save as a fairy-godfather. It was the first time that she
+had appreciated his fame. She had been absorbed in Europe and its
+diversions--and diverters; the new wealth had been accepted as a matter
+of course; her imagination had not been powerful enough to visualise at
+a distance what her mind grasped the moment the facts were presented to
+her in the measured yet glowing terms of a bank’s president.
+“He always did feel himself a cut above me,” she thought grimly as she
+left the building and walked down Main Street. “And now, I suppose, he
+thinks Perch of the Devil is Mount Olympus, and that he is some god.
+It would be fun to put a nick or two in his halo--but never mind: I’ve
+got a cool two hundred thousand--_and_ a palatial residence, _and_ a
+limousine--sounds like a fairy tale. There’s nothing mean about him,
+anyhow.”
+When she reached her beautiful home she found four reporters awaiting
+her. They apologised for not meeting her at the train, but as hour
+after hour had passed with discouraging reports, they finally had
+gone home to recuperate for the next day’s labours. Ida dismissed the
+last of her regrets, and told them all that she wished Butte to know
+at once, showed the women the contents of her trunks, which the maids
+were unpacking, promised to let them know when the newer Paris wardrobe
+arrived, and finally gave them lunch. Reporters are the quickest people
+in the world to detect affectations, assumptions, and false values, and
+the most merciless in their exposure; but, although these four were on
+the alert, they could find neither traces of original commonness nor
+imitation of the British aristocracy. Ida apparently had consigned the
+slang of her former class to the limbo of careless grammar, and she was
+so simple and natural that they failed to discover how clever she was;
+they agreed, as they walked down Broadway, that she was merely a marvel
+of adaptability, like so many others that had done credit to the great
+state of Montana, to say nothing of the fluid West in general.
+But, although Ida could be anything she chose when occasion demanded,
+she always sought relief from the strain as quickly as possible.
+Immediately after the departure of the reporters she telephoned for her
+limousine and drove to the large “Block” in the heart of the business
+district where Miss Ruby Miller kept the looks of the Butte ladies up
+to par. As she left the elevator she saw that the familiar door was
+open as usual and the old screen before it. She tapped discreetly, and
+Miss Ruby came out into the hall, removing the cold cream from her
+hands with her apron.
+“Ide!” she cried rapturously, throwing both arms about her friend’s
+velvet shoulders. “Glory be, but I’m glad to see you and you do look
+fine----”
+“How mean of you not to meet me----”
+“We had it all fixed and supper here, but gave it up at ten o’clock.
+For all we knew you might not get in till morning, and you know how we
+work----”
+“Well, I’ll forgive you if you both come to dinner with me tonight. I
+want to have one good old time before I sit up and play the grande dame
+act for weeks on end----”
+“I guess you’re one now without any play-acting. You look the real
+thing all right. And I guess we won’t see so awful much of you now----”
+“Do you mean because I’m harnessed up to a bunch of money----” began
+Ida in high indignation.
+“Oh, I know you’ll always feel the same, but grand dames and our sort
+don’t gee at the same table. The West is democratic but it ain’t too
+democratic. Don’t think I’m jealous. You’re just where I’d like to
+be myself, and I’m proud that one of us has got to the top so quick.
+My! But Mr. Compton’s a wonder. To think that I ever dared call him
+Greg--even behind his back. Well, he’ll be just as proud of you as you
+are of him. Pearl’ll want to see your hats.”
+“She can copy them all. Be sure to come early.”
+She felt warmed by the little interview, but as she went down in the
+elevator she admitted to herself that her future intercourse with her
+old friends must be sporadic, no matter what her loyalty; and she
+wondered if her new friends would take their place; or even be to her
+the half of what Ora had become in the long intimacy of travel. She
+shrugged her handsome shoulders. If you elected to mount in life, you
+must pay the toll. Were she abruptly returned to the old cottage in
+East Granite Street certainly Ruby and Pearl would not compensate her.
+No, not for a moment. You may slip back in life if you are not strong
+enough to hold on, but you do not deliberately turn back even for the
+friends of your youth. Neither does Progress halt and sit down to wait
+for its failures to catch up. Ida leaned back in her limousine and met
+the interested eyes of many pedestrians of both sexes as her chauffeur
+drove her about for an hour to get the air, and incidentally to be
+looked at.
+Today she was in a mood to enjoy Butte, and she deliberately summoned
+the long anticipated sensations. She revelled in the gaunt grey
+ugliness of Anaconda Hill which flung its arrogant head high above the
+eastern end of the great hill itself; in the sensation of driving over
+miles of subterranean numbered streets, some of them three thousand
+feet below, to which that famous mass of rock and dirt and angular
+buildings was the portal. She leaned far out of her car to admire the
+glittering mountains that looked like blue ice topped with white, and
+decided that they were far more original and beautiful than the Alps of
+Austria and Switzerland; certainly they tugged at her heartstrings and
+at the same time filled her with an unprecedented desire to sing. She
+noticed for the first time that the violet foothills against the nearer
+mountain east of the city seemed to close the end of the streets as the
+Alps did in Innspruck, and gave the ragged overgrown camp clinging to
+its high perch in the Rockies a redeeming touch of perfect beauty.
+She drove out to Columbia Gardens, bought flowers from the conservatory
+for her rooms, and wandered about recalling the many gay times she had
+had in the dancing pavilion. But her eye was suddenly arrested by the
+steep mountain behind, then dropped slowly to the base. It was there
+that she had promised to marry Gregory Compton. She remembered his
+young passion and her own. She had never felt anything like it again;
+nor had he ever been quite the same. Was it one of those “supreme
+moments” novelists so blithely alluded to? The logical inference of
+that old bit of bathos was that such moments had no duplicates. She
+felt faint and dizzy for a moment; then walked back to her car, smiling
+grimly as she realised that she had experienced a fleeting echo of that
+vast unattainable desire women live and die cherishing or bewailing.
+“Poor things! Poor things!” she thought, with the first pang of pity
+her sex had ever inspired. “No wonder they go in for suffrage, art,
+work, any old thing. Home,” she added to the chauffeur.
+She peremptorily dismissed all thought of the past during the drive
+back to town and reverted to her pleasure in once more feeling a part
+of her surroundings, hideous though they might, for the most part, be;
+instead of walking with alert critical eye through what always must
+seem to her the animated pages of ancient history. But her complacency
+received a sudden shock. The car was rolling along Park Street when her
+eye rested upon a man’s face vaguely familiar. She had bowed graciously
+and the face was behind her before she realised that the man was
+Professor Whalen, and that, for a second, she had looked into a pair of
+pale blue eyes that sent her a swift message of hate.
+Ida shuddered. The warm light air of her beloved Rockies turned cold
+and heavy. “I feel as if I’d stepped on a snake and just missed getting
+bitten,” she thought, putting her sensations into a concrete form,
+after her habit. “I had forgotten the little viper was alive, and I
+wish to goodness he wasn’t.” She had flouted superstition always, but
+she could not shake off the sense of menace and evil that had vibrated
+from the man until she was within her own doors once more. Then she
+became as oblivious of Whalen’s existence as during that late exotic
+period when everything connected with her old life had seemed too crude
+to be real.
+The parlour maid handed her a note that had arrived an hour before from
+Mr. Luning, Mark’s partner. Mrs. Blake, he wrote, had bought a present
+for Mrs. Compton in Paris and sent it to the care of her husband’s
+firm. Mr. Luning had gone the day before to Great Falls to clear it in
+the Custom House, and now had the pleasure of forwarding the boxes, etc.
+“Good gracious!” exclaimed Ida, “what can it be?”
+“There’s four big boxes in the back hall, ma’am.”
+Ida lost no time. If Ora had given her a present it must be worth
+looking at, and she went as rapidly as dignity would permit to the
+nether regions and ordered the boxes opened. The present proved to
+be a magnificent silver service, from many dozens of “flat ware” to
+massive platters, vegetable dishes, flower, fruit and bon-bon pieces,
+and candelabra. The delighted servants made a shining display on
+the dining-room table, and after Ida had gloated over it for a time
+and informed her audience that it was copied from a royal service
+in the Louvre, she went suddenly up to her bedroom. This time she
+did shed a few tears, and as she looked at her handkerchief in some
+wonder she decided that there was at least one person that she loved,
+“hard-headed” as she was, and that Ora Blake had found the one soft
+spot in her flinty heart and wormed herself into it. She went to
+her desk immediately and wrote Ora a letter that was almost tender,
+admitting that she missed her “like fury”, and begging her to return
+soon.
+“Greg telephoned this morning,” she concluded, oblivious that she was
+betraying the fact that she had not seen her husband, “and told me to
+tell you to keep Mark down below for several months. But his lungs must
+be well by this time or he’d be dead. And the rest of him will mend all
+the sooner in this magnificent air. Heavens, but it’s good to breathe
+it again! It makes one feel as if the atmosphere of Europe hadn’t been
+aired for a century. I’ve got a wonder of a house and a jim dandy of a
+limousine, but ever since I came I’ve felt kind of homesick, and I’ve
+just realised it’s for you, old girl. So, come home. Once more ten
+million thanks.”
+And when Ruby and Pearl dined with her that night she realised that all
+her old zest in their society was gone. Ida Hook, at least, had “passed
+on.”
+IV
+It was on the morning of this same day that Gregory sat alone in his
+cabin uncommonly idle, for he still spent the greater part of his
+time underground, when not away on business connected with his new
+investments and deals. For the last week he had not left the hill, and
+although he was on the alert to hear his geological acumen vindicated,
+he was in no mood to find pleasure in his mine. His conscience, an
+organ that troubled him little, was restive. In spite of his liberal
+disbursements, he knew that he had treated Ida unfairly. He had long
+since made up his mind to obliterate her from his personal life, and,
+if the truth must be told about a man who had snapped his fingers in
+the face of the most formidable combination of capital in the world,
+he was afraid to meet his wife. Vanity, he argued, in such women takes
+the place of warmth, and he had no mind to burden his memory and
+resource with an endless chain of subterfuges; nor had he any relish
+for the bald statement that since he could not have the woman he wanted
+he would have none; and that his mine, as complex and mysterious,
+as provocative of dreams, as capricious and satisfying as woman
+herself--to say nothing of hard work and increasing power--was to fill
+his life.
+Ida might rage, stamp, scream, with her hands on her hips, her superb
+eyes flashing. Worse still, she might weep, lamenting that he loved her
+no longer--if he made her hurried friendly calls. Far, far worse, he
+might succumb to her beauty and superlative femaleness and hate himself
+ever after. His was to be a life of unremitting and constructive work;
+he must keep that blue flame burning on the altar in his sanctuary. If
+he never paused to draw it up into his consciousness he must know it
+was there.
+Better stay away until she understood all that it was necessary
+she should know, wore out her pique in private, and accepted the
+situation. But he would have felt better this morning if he had heard
+that her train had arrived early in the evening. He might be ruthless,
+even where women were concerned, but he was also sensitive and capable
+of tenderness.
+But he was not thinking of Ida alone. He was listening for the
+footsteps of Joshua Mann, and in a few moments he heard them, as
+well as the angry growl of his foreman’s voice. Mann entered without
+ceremony.
+“I’ve been looking for you, sir. We’ve the devil’s own luck again----”
+“Apex struck the Primo vein?”
+“No, and won’t for fifty feet yet. But--well--I hate to say it--we’ve
+lost our vein--cut off as short as if it had been sawed. Of course,
+it’s faulted, and God only knows where its dropped to--or how far.
+A prettier shoot of ore was never uncovered. What’s worrying me is
+that--oh, hell!--just suppose that’s what Amalgamated is sinking on. My
+head’s going round. Can I have something?”
+Gregory waved his hand toward the cupboard where his visitors found
+refreshment. When Mann had braced himself, his employer tapped a large
+sheet of paper that lay on the table.
+“Come here,” he said. “I made this map some time ago, and calculated
+to a day when you would lose the vein. I guessed our vein had faulted
+before Amalgamated got busy. But don’t worry. They’re either on a
+parallel vein or on a mere fork.” His pencil moved along the vein
+already stoped, travelled over the fault line and recovered a vein
+further down. “Hundred feet,” he said. “With air drills and unless the
+fault breccia is uncommonly hard, which I don’t think is the case, we
+should find it in less than three weeks. They can’t get through that
+rock for at least a month. Even then they may not touch us, but then
+again they may, and we must be there first. Cut across the fault at
+once and follow it on the footwall side to the east. Get well into the
+footwall. If you don’t recover the vein inside of a hundred feet I’ll
+stand to lose a thousand dollars and you’ll be the winner.”
+“I guess not,” said Mann admiringly. “But, by jing! I was worried. You
+never can tell about them faults. When the old earth split herself up
+and got to slipping she not only lost one side of herself sometimes,
+but twisted about as if she was having fun with the apex law of Montana
+in advance. But I figure out that you’re like old Marcus Daly--you’ve
+got a sort of X-ray in your eye that sees the ore winking below. So
+long.”
+He departed to carry encouragement to the anxious miners, and Gregory
+went out and walked along his hill. By this time he knew every inch
+of it, and had found indications of ore in his other claims while
+superintending the development work necessary before perfecting his
+patents. If Amalgamated sank on his present vein and the courts
+enjoined him from working it until the matter of apex rights was
+settled, he would simply go ahead and sink through the carbonates in
+his other claims to those vast deposits of chalcopyrite with which he
+was convinced his hill was packed. He knew the geological history of
+every mine in Montana, and while he had given up all hope of finding
+gold on his estate save in small incidental values, he believed that he
+possessed one of the greatest copper deposits in the Rocky Mountains.
+And now that even one vein of his hill was threatened, he dismissed his
+old dreams with a shrug and transferred his undivided affection to the
+exciting treasure the earth had given him. There were few surprises
+in gold mines. A great copper mine might make geological history. In
+two districts, Butte and Castle Mountain, copper glance, an ore of
+secondary enrichment, had been found far down in the sulphide zone
+below chalcopyrite, chief of the primary ores. He believed that he
+should find glance at depth of nine hundred feet. If there were masses
+of it he should take out millions in a year, for chalcopyrite was the
+richest of the permanent copper ores of this region, running as high as
+79.8.
+He had been on amiable terms with the manager and engineer of the Apex
+Mine since the battle underground, and he crossed the claim unmolested
+to make his daily inspection of the Primo shaft house. But there had
+been no further attempt to use the cross-cut, although the Apex people
+had managed before they were discovered to drive to the point upon
+which they expected to sink.
+Gregory walked up the hill beyond to look at the cottage just
+completed, which was to be occupied by the manager and foreman of the
+Primo Mine as soon as Mark reopened it. He had been about to begin
+operations, cutting across the fault Gregory had demonstrated--a fault
+parallel to the one in Perch of the Devil--when he was shot nearly to
+death.
+The cottage was situated in a clearing in the pine woods, somewhat
+apart from the cabins, which were being renovated and made comfortable
+for the miners. Gregory was so positive that the pyroxenite vein would
+be recovered just beyond the row of aspens, some sixty feet below
+the tableland, that Mark, who believed his friend to be an inspired
+geologist, was preparing for a long period of mining; although if
+it had been a quartz mine Gregory, sure as he was of his judgment,
+would not have permitted him to put up a mill and concentrating plant
+until sufficient ore had been blocked out to warrant the expense. But
+pyroxenite went direct to the smelter, and a cottage could always be
+rented.
+The little bungalow had two bedrooms besides one for a Chinese servant,
+a bathroom, and a large living-room with a deep fireplace, a raftered
+ceiling, and pine walls stained brown. Gregory, as he realised how
+cosy it would be when furnished, wondered that he had been satisfied
+with his two-roomed cabin for so long. He had been too absorbed to
+think of comfort, but today he felt a desire for something more
+nearly resembling a home than a perch. He looked through the windows
+at the sibilant pines, the pink carpet of primrose moss, the distant
+forests rising to the blue and white mountains; and then he sighed as
+he glanced slowly about the long room and pictured it furnished in
+warm tones of red and brown, wondering if either of the men would be
+married. It would be an ideal home for a honeymoon.
+He twitched his shoulders impatiently and went outside. To his surprise
+he saw a wagon ascending the hill laden with lumber, the seats occupied
+by the contractor and carpenters that had built the bungalow.
+“What’s up?” he asked, as the contractor leaped to the ground.
+“Another bungalow. Perhaps you could suggest a site. It’s to be near
+this, and the same size. We had a telegram from Mr. Blake yesterday.”
+“But what does he want of two cottages?”
+“Can’t say, sir, unless he means to come out here to get well.”
+“That’s nonsense. He knows he could stay at my house on the ranch.”
+But Gregory was not in the habit of thinking aloud. After indicating
+a site he swung back to his hill, angry and apprehensive. Could it
+be possible that Mark intended to spend the summer at the mine and
+bring his wife with him? As soon as he reached his cabin he sat down
+at his table, and after getting his friend’s present address from
+Luning, telephoned a long distance message to Pony to be telegraphed
+to Mr. Mark Blake in Santa Barbara. Its gist was that the weather was
+abominable and that Mark must not think of anything so foolish as to
+bring his weakened heart and lungs to this altitude. His services
+would be imperative later when his solicitous friend locked horns with
+Amalgamated, and meanwhile he was, for heaven’s sake, to take care of
+himself and remain on the coast until he was in a condition to work day
+and night.
+He received an answer that afternoon.
+“No intention of leaving here for two months. Lungs pretty good, but
+shall wait for leg to heal. Ora wants present cottage for herself as
+she intends to spend summer at mine. Will you be on the lookout for a
+manager? He can live in the lessee’s shack until the new cottage is
+built. Might begin operations at once. Hope this not too much trouble.
+Mark.”
+This message was transmitted over the telephone, and, to the excessive
+annoyance of the operator, who happened to be the belle of Pony,
+Gregory asked her three times, and with no excess of politeness, to
+repeat it. The third time he wrote it out and stared at the words as if
+the unsteady characters were recombining into a sketch of the infernal
+regions.
+“Good God!” he thought. “And I can’t get away!”
+Was Mark mad? Was she mad? Then he realised the blissful ignorance of
+both regarding the drama he so often had swept from the stage of his
+mind, that secret dweller in the most secret recesses of his soul.
+Doubtless Ora never had thrown him a thought since they parted at her
+gate. He remembered her expressed intention to live at her mine when
+the lease was up, her desire to adventure underground, her intense
+appreciation of the romance of mining. He closed his eyes, his face
+relaxed. So long as she cared nothing for him there was no danger; he
+might daydream about her a bit. At least--at last!--he should see her
+again, talk to her, work with her, help her as no one else could help
+her. If the association he would have avoided was inevitable why not
+welcome it as a brief oasis in what must be an arid life, so far as
+mortal companionship was concerned?
+But he was not the man to dream long. Presently he opened his eyes,
+set his jaw until it looked a yard long, put on his overalls, and went
+underground.
+V
+Butte long since had made up its mind as to the social future of
+Mrs. Gregory Compton. That Ida’s mother had been a laundress and her
+father a miner concerned the ladies of Butte as little as many similar
+outcroppings of family history peculiar not only to Montana but to all
+regions of recent exploitation and rapid growth.
+In the hearty welcome extended to the newcomer, with either the
+money or the personality to command its attention, Butte more nearly
+resembles London than any other city in the world. To pasts she is
+indifferent, provided they are not resurrected as models for a present:
+she asks no questions of a pretty, amiable, amusing woman who pays
+her the compliment of sojourning in her midst, so long as the lady
+exercises an equal reticence--assuming reticence to be her virtue--and
+plays the social game with _savoir faire_. Distractions on that high
+perch are few, social life ebbs oftener than it flows, many of the
+large houses are closed for the greater part of the year, and only the
+very young, who care not where they are so long as they may dance, find
+life in an overgrown mining camp as satisfactory as their elders find
+New York.
+But the hospitality of Butte is genuine and founded largely upon common
+sense. Most of the women composing its society have enjoyed wealth for
+many years: they have travelled extensively; and if they continue to
+make their homes in Butte it is solely on account of their own business
+interests or those of their men. They argue that to deprive themselves
+of even the casual diversion, assuming the exclusive airs of large
+and resourceful communities, would merely put them on a level with
+thousands of other small towns slowly stagnating, be unworthy of their
+worldly experience, and of the large free spirit of the Northwest which
+has pervaded that isolated camp since they came with their husbands or
+fathers to take a hand in its history.
+As for Mrs. Gregory Compton all they knew of her in her present
+stage of development was favourable, although several had a lively
+remembrance of the rosy black-haired Ida Hook delivering her excellent
+mother’s laundry work at their back door, and receiving more or less
+of her “cheek.” But they had heard, at the time, of her lessons with
+Professor Whalen, and of Ora Blake’s coincident interest. Of her social
+advantages and triumphs in Europe the press had kept them informed; she
+returned to Butte, in fact, as one new-born. Moreover, she now owned
+one of the finest houses in the city for entertaining, they knew that
+she had elected to shine in Butte rather than in London (that Mecca of
+so many quick-rich women without position in their own country); and
+above all she was the wife of Gregory Compton, the man in whom Montana
+was beginning to feel assured it could take an unequivocal pride, not
+only for his diabolical cleverness, but because he was as “straight”
+as the Twentieth Century in the United States of America would permit.
+Butte felt devoutly grateful to Ida for being and returning, and, with
+that utter lack of affectation that characterised it, began calling two
+days after her arrival.
+Ida would have been glad to have had Ora’s support and advice during
+this ordeal--which caused her far more apprehension than ducal
+week-ends. But she summoned all her acquired knowledge and tact,
+fortified it with her native and supreme confidence in herself, and
+made no mistakes. Butte was charmed with the severe rich gowns that set
+off her haughty head and warmly colored face and the long, flowing,
+yet stately lines of her beautiful figure; charmed also with a manner
+that was both simple and dignified. She showed no enthusiasm at being
+taken up so promptly, neither did she quite accept it as a matter of
+course. If her talk ranged freely over common acquaintance in London,
+the Paris dressmakers of the season, the new opera, the plays of the
+moment in New York, it was without glibness, and she took a firm hold
+on the older and more important women of the community by confiding to
+them that she should not make her first venture in the difficult art of
+entertaining until her friend Mrs. Blake returned to help her through
+the novitiate. Many of the younger women were the wives of Amalgamated
+officials and attorneys, or of men in a relationship to that mighty
+power but one degree further removed; but the men individually were too
+broad-minded to cherish a personal grudge against Compton, and they
+were, moreover, quite as eager as their mates to meet his handsome wife.
+During the ensuing fortnight Ida dined out every night, went to a
+bridge party every afternoon, as well as to several luncheons, teas,
+and dances. She wore a different costume every time she appeared in
+public; but although there was at the moment nothing in Butte to
+compare with her gowns she never produced the effect of outshining the
+other women by anything but her beauty and individual style. In short
+her success was so immediate and so final that, although she liked
+these ladies of her native town even better than she had anticipated,
+her rapid conquest soon lost its novelty, and she wished that Ora would
+return; not only because she missed her increasingly, but because to
+entertain in her great house would give her a new and really poignant
+excitement, and lift her definitely from the ranks of the merely
+received.
+Gregory telephoned every few days, and never twice at the same hour.
+When she found herself restlessly awaiting the ring of the instrument,
+she dashed out of the house angrily and took a walk. If she found upon
+her return that he had called her up, she felt that he had given her
+the excuse to telephone to him, and she soon learned at what hours she
+could find him either in his cabin or down in the mine, where he had
+a booth. She was furious at what she called her raging female vanity,
+and if she could have found another man to assuage it she would not
+have hesitated to press him into service at whatever cost to himself.
+But, as happens more often than not, there was not an unmarried man in
+Butte old enough to be worthy of a fastidious woman’s notice. She would
+have yawned in the face of “Brownies”, and, although more than one
+roving husband would have placed himself at her disposal, she was the
+last woman to court scandal or even gossip. She longed for the advent
+of Lord John Mowbray, whose gayety would distract her mind, and whose
+devotion make her forget that she was a neglected wife. She could throw
+dust into the eyes of Butte by pretending to be his matrimonial sponsor.
+But for the first time she wished that she had children. The great
+house seemed to demand the patter of small feet, the slamming of
+doors, a row of naughty faces peering over the banister of the second
+floor. It was terribly silent. And yet she had felt settled down in
+that house at once, so long had one of its kind been the object of her
+unswerving desire; its atmosphere already seemed to hang listless with
+ennui. She subscribed to both the state and city suffrage fund, for
+she felt a new sympathy for women who were trying to fill their lives,
+and sincerely hoped they would invent some game that would make them
+independent of men.
+Seventeen days after her return she was sitting in the library, trying
+to forget her solitary luncheon in a novel when she heard the front
+doorbell ring. Her servants were amiable but not too competent, and she
+waited impatiently and in vain for one of them to answer the summons.
+She restrained the impulse to open the door herself. This was now an
+obsolete custom among her new acquaintance; although having the front
+door shut in one’s face while the colored maid took one’s card to the
+lady of the stately mansion was hardly an improvement, and this had
+been her experience a day or two ago. She rang the bell in the library.
+Still there was no sign of life from the high-priced young women who
+doubtless were gossipping over the back fence. Ida’s curiosity overcame
+her. The hour was too early for callers. It might be a cable. She stole
+to the front door and peered through its curtain of Honiton lace. Then
+she gave a war whoop which would have horrified her servants--who,
+careless as they were, stood in awe of her--flung the door open, caught
+Ora in her arms and almost carried her into the library.
+“Good Lord, but I’m glad to see you!” she cried. “I’m just about dead
+of lonesomeness. Why didn’t you telegraph? I’d have met you if your
+train didn’t get in till two in the morning.”
+Ora laughed and disentangled herself, although she kissed Ida warmly.
+“I just got in--came here on the way from the station and sent my bags
+to the house--but I always did hate to be met. How beautiful your house
+is.”
+“It’s all right. But it’s about as cheerful to live alone in as one
+of those palaces in the Via Garibaldi! My, but I’m glad you’re here.
+You’re the only person I ever missed, and being a real lady for weeks
+on end is telling on my plebeian health. I didn’t have any relief even
+in New York. How’s Mark?”
+“Quite well, except for his broken leg.”
+“Is he here?”
+“Oh, no--I left him in Santa Barbara--that is to say at the Club House
+at Montecito, the fashionable suburb. He has a jolly circle of friends
+there, and has no desire to travel any further until he can walk.”
+Ida put her hands on Ora’s shoulders and turned her round to the
+light. “What’s up?” she demanded. “You look fine, as pretty as a
+picture--but--different, somehow.”
+“I’ve left Mark.”
+Ida glanced into the hall. The opening of back doors indicated that one
+of the maids had condescended to remember she was a wage earner. “Let’s
+go upstairs,” said Ida; and as they crossed the hall she said to the
+girl who was hastening to the front door with a propitiating smile,
+“You’re just about ten minutes too late, as usual, and the next time it
+happens you lose your job. I’m not the sort that sits down and wails
+over the servant question. This house will be run properly if I have to
+send East for help. Now put on your hat and run down to Mrs. Blake’s
+house and bring up her bags, and tell them to send her trunks here.
+“Yes, you’re going to stay with me for the present,” she said, as Ora
+protested. “Don’t say another word about it.”
+Ora shrugged her shoulders, and when they were in Ida’s bedroom she
+took off her hat and coat and wandered about aimlessly for a few
+moments. Ida was almost breathless with impatience and a curious sense
+of apprehension that vaguely recalled the strange terror Ora had
+inspired on the day of their meeting. Ora wore a blue frock, and Ida
+noticed that the yellow room did not dim her fair radiance. If possible
+she was holding her head higher than usual, her skin “gleamed” more
+than ever, there was a curious light in her always brilliant eyes, half
+defiant, half exultant.
+“Do sit down!” said Ida sharply, cutting short Ora’s voluble approval
+of the room. “There, that’s right,” as Ora flung herself into a chair.
+“Now, fire away. You’re brimming over with something. Do you mean that
+you’ve left Mark for good and all?”
+“Yes.”
+“Told him so?”
+Ora nodded.
+“Did you tell him about Valdobia, or what? For heaven’s sake open up.”
+“No, I--I thought I wouldn’t tell him everything at once. I told him
+that I meant to spend the rest of my life in Europe, and that it
+was only fair to himself to divorce me--he can do it easily on the
+ground of desertion--and marry someone who would make a real home for
+him--make him happy.”
+“Ah! Mark’s the sort women marry but don’t fall in love with. And what
+did he say when you handed him that?”
+“He was rather broken up.”
+“Really! And you? I always had an idea that when it came to the point
+you wouldn’t do it. You have high-falutin’ notions about honor,
+noblesse oblige, and all the rest of it, to say nothing of being really
+soft, as I once told you. There’s only one thing that would make you
+hard--to everyone else--and that’s being in love----”
+“That is it!” exclaimed Ora eagerly. “I’ve made up my mind to marry
+Valdobia. I wasn’t so sure when I left Europe, but you know what
+separation often does----”
+“Yes,” said Ida dryly, “I do. Well, Mark will have to take his
+medicine, I guess. I’ve never doubted, since Valdobia joined us in
+Genoa, that he was the man for you. It’s fate, I guess. But tell me
+what Mark said, after all. Did he consent?”
+“There was nothing else to do. He knew I meant it. I broke it to
+him by degrees. Besides, he knew how it was long before I left for
+Europe. He had practically given me up. Of course he was fond of me--I
+had become a habit and made him comfortable, besides being useful
+to him--but--well, I gave him six years--my youth!” she burst out
+passionately. “What wouldn’t I give to wipe out those years, be twenty
+again and free! I tried to make him understand that I was no longer in
+the least like the bewildered undeveloped girl he had married; and that
+I bore as little resemblance to the intellectual automaton I made of
+myself later. I told him that I was awake once for all, and that rather
+than live again with a man I couldn’t care for I’d be boiled in oil.
+Then he understood.”
+“I should think he might! Of course he asked if there was another man?”
+“Yes, but I told him that was neither here nor there; that in any case
+I should leave him and live in Europe.”
+“Poor Mark! Tied by the leg, and lost in the shuffle!”
+“You know as well as I do that I have nothing in me for Mark and that
+if I cared as little for Valdobia it would only be fair to give him
+a second throw for happiness. When I left him he was quite resigned,
+and we have agreed to remain the best of friends. I shall leave him my
+power of attorney as before, and he will continue to manage my affairs.”
+“How much more sensible we are in our Twentieth Century! No doubt he
+will visit you in the Palazzo Valdobia when he takes a whirl at Europe.”
+“Why not? But tell me you think I did right, Ida?” Ora’s voice was very
+sweet and plaintive.
+“You did what you were bound to do, I guess, when you met a man that
+could throw a lariat round the neck of that romantic imagination of
+yours. Right? I don’t know. I guess I’ve got the same old streak of
+Puritan Americanism in me, although if other people want to have
+_liaisons_ and divorces it’s none of my affair. Women will do more and
+more as they damn please, I guess, men having set them such a good
+example for a few centuries. But I simply hate the idea of losing you.
+I want you right here in Butte. Lord, I’ve almost forgotten may slang!”
+Ora laughed with something like her old merriment. “Oh, you’ll have
+me for an escape valve for a while yet. Valdobia’s mother is dying of
+some lingering horrible disease. It wouldn’t be decent for me to go to
+Rome, and I should be lonely anywhere else. So, I’ve made up my mind
+to stay here during the summer at least, and realise a dream I used
+to indulge in before I ever knew I could fall in love.” Once more she
+looked straight at Ida, this time with the slow expectant smile of a
+child. “I’m going to reopen my mine and run it myself--of course I
+shall have a manager. Mark has written, or telegraphed, to Mr. Compton
+to find one for me--but I shall live out there and go down every day,
+and make believe I am doing something, too--at all events realise that
+it _is_ my mine. Mining has always--that is, always did fascinate me
+more than anything else on earth. I shall be devoted to Valdobia when I
+am married to him, but I simply must have that adventure first----”
+“For heaven’s sake don’t go dotty like Gregory over a hole in the
+ground. If you get that bee buzzing round in your skull I pity poor
+Valdobia. If it were not for his mother I’d cable to him to come
+out----”
+Ora’s face set with a hardness that arrested Ida’s observant eye.
+“Don’t you do anything of the sort. Mark said once about my father,
+‘It was characteristic of him that when he quit he quit for good.’ I
+am always discovering more and more of my father in me. I’ll live that
+old dream and it will finish when Valdobia and I both are free. Then I
+shall wipe it off the slate--consign it to limbo.” She sprang to her
+feet and stretched out her arms. “I am going to do exactly as I please
+as long as I am free. Of course I am mad about Valdobia--you know that
+I wouldn’t marry him if I were not--but I am mad too about liberty and
+my mine. This is my only chance. And I am a Montanan, born in the Rocky
+Mountains. I want something of the life that has made my state famous
+before I become a European. I’ve never had anything of her but Butte. I
+want the wild mountains--I want, above all, the mine that has given me
+my freedom. I’m going to wear overalls and go down into the mine every
+day.”
+“A sweet sight you’ll be!” said Ida disgustedly. “And the miners--Oh,
+they’ll just love the idea of having a woman at their heels! What on
+earth has got hold of you? It’s the only time I’ve ever known you
+to get off your base. Why, there’s nothing a woman can do at a mine
+unless she’s a graduated mining engineer, and nothing then that a man
+couldn’t do better. You’ll be in the way and you’ll soon be bored to
+death yourself. If you’re so crazy about Montana why don’t you do some
+of those great things for her that your father suggested? And how do
+you reconcile your marriage to an Italian with your devotion to your
+father’s memory?”
+Ora turned away her head. “My father gave me too much of himself to
+expect me to play the rôle of ministering angel to anything. I intend
+to invest in Montana the greater part of all that I take out of my
+mine. If it gives me one of the great fortunes I shall endow my state
+in some way--as Mark may suggest. But I cannot live here. That is
+for ever settled. When I go to Europe I shall never return--not even
+to America. I shall forget my life here, everything connected with
+it--everything! One side of me is already European. I shall become
+wholly so.”
+“Somehow,” said Ida slowly, and with the sensation of being so close
+to something that she couldn’t see it, “I don’t get the idea that
+you’re so mad about Valdobia. Long since I figured that when you did
+love a man you’d be a sort of white pillar of flame about him. I
+firmly believe that Valdobia is the man for you, but, well--he fell
+too quickly. He didn’t make you suffer, never kept you guessing for
+a minute. The women that turn men’s heads are a good deal like men
+themselves; they’ve got to be hurt hard and kept on tenterhooks before
+they are in a condition to accommodate the virus. You are fond of
+Valdobia, and well you may be, but mad isn’t the right word----”
+“Oh, yes it is! It is!” Ora was walking up and down the room. “You must
+believe that I love him as I never dreamed I could love anybody----”
+“Hi!” cried Ida. “Your letter-man! That’s what! You were more nearly in
+love with him than you are with Valdobia, and because, for some reason
+or other, you couldn’t get him. Where is he?”
+Ora’s eyes looked large and blank. “That! I had quite forgotten it.
+It was the last of a long line of mental love affairs. Those always
+evaporate even from the memory when the real man comes along.” She
+sighed heavily and sat down once more. “I know that I shall be happy
+with Valdobia, only I am not happy now. That is so far off! And of
+course I feel badly about poor Mark. But I couldn’t help it. Not to do
+it would have been worse. And I should go off my head meanwhile if I
+didn’t have this mine. Do you think I could remain here in Butte and go
+to dinners and bridge parties? I should scream in their faces. I must
+have work. Be sure I can find something to do at the mine--I suppose
+there are a laboratory and assay office. And there will always be the
+excitement of hoping to find free milling gold--at present what could
+be more exciting than to drift for that lost vein?”
+“It wouldn’t keep me awake nights. But have your own way. I don’t want
+you down with nerves, and that will happen if you don’t look out.”
+“If I don’t get my own way.”
+“Exactly. But I wish your way marched with mine. I’ve missed you like
+fury--Say!--here’s an idea: I’ll go back to Europe with you now if you
+like, and stay until you marry. There are lots of places we planned to
+go to and didn’t----”
+“Ida, you are a dear! And you longed so for Butte. Why it would be like
+tearing an author from his unfinished magnum opus. Besides--well--you
+have a husband----”
+“Oh, Lord! Gregory is running the Universe at present. Women don’t
+exist for him. Shall we go?”
+Ora shook her head. Her face had turned from white to pale. “No. I must
+spend these last months of my freedom here in my state. And that lost
+vein--it pulls me. I _must_ have that life for a few months--for the
+first and last time. You--you--might spend your week-ends with me.”
+Ida scowled and turned away her head. She had no intention of admitting
+even to Ora that Gregory deliberately avoided her. “Not I. I hate the
+sight of the De Smet ranch. Go, if you like, but I feel sure you will
+come in often. And before you go I wish you would do me a favour.”
+“Of course I will.”
+“Let me give you a dinner. I want to begin that sort of thing and
+you’ll furnish the excuse besides helping me out.”
+“Very well. Have it soon. I want to go to the mine as quickly as
+possible. I shall begin to send out the furniture for my bungalow
+tomorrow.”
+“A week’s notice will be enough. I’ll write the invitations today.
+There’s another reason I want to give this dinner. Gregory hasn’t been
+seen anywhere with me--hates going out. But I shall make him understand
+that he must come to my first dinner--or people will be talking--and I
+hate people prying into my affairs. Besides, it will be his duty to you
+as the wife of his best friend. (He needn’t know you’ve left Mark yet
+awhile.) I’m not hankering for the rôle of the neglected wife; and I’m
+sick of making excuses. For all Butte knew I might not have laid eyes
+on my husband since my return.”
+And although she spoke bravely Ora knew that she had not. “We’ll have
+the dinner,” she said warmly. “And it will be great fun to get it
+up----”
+“Now, come this minute and go to bed. You are to stay with me as
+long as you are in this camp, and I’m going to tone you up, and make
+you rest as we used to in Europe every afternoon--hard work in this
+altitude but it can be done. I’ve got to go to a bridge party now, and
+you are to sleep. If you feel rested when I get back, I’ll call up two
+or three of your old friends and ask them to come informally to dinner.
+So long.”
+She closed the door of her best spare room on Ora and walked slowly
+back to her own, her brows drawn; once more quick with a sensation
+of profound uneasiness, of being close to something that she could
+not see. But it was not her habit to ponder for long over the elusive
+and obscure. “Guess I’m worried about Ora’s health,” she thought
+impatiently, and rang for her maid.
+VI
+Two days later Gregory received the following note from his wife:
+  DEAR GREGORY:
+  Ora is here, and before going out to the mine has promised to help
+  me through the ordeal of my first big dinner. Entertaining goes with
+  this house, and although I am beginning somewhat sooner, perhaps,
+  than is necessary, I have my reasons. I have asked twenty-four
+  people, the most important of the older and the younger married
+  sets. The dinner is to be at eight o’clock Tuesday. I want you to
+  come. Yow have been very generous, but there is one thing more that
+  you can do for me and I feel that I have the right to demand it.
+  If you no longer care for me, that is something I cannot help; nor
+  you either for that matter. But so far as the world knows, I am
+  your wife, and if we are never seen together there is bound to be
+  disagreeable gossip. I don’t want to be gossipped about. It is vulgar
+  and it complicates life. The Butte women I most wanted to know are
+  all right, but the town has the usual allowance of fools and scandal
+  mongers. By showing yourself at my first dinner in your own house
+  you will muzzle them. You can arrive in time for dinner and take a
+  late train back to Pony, if there is one. But please come. I am sure
+  if you think it over you will admit that I am merely proving my new
+  knowledge of the world in asking for your formal protection.
+                                                                    IDA.
+Gregory read this note hastily when he found it in his morning mail-bag
+in company with many business letters, to which he also gave scant
+attention: he was in haste to go underground. There was still no sign
+of the lost vein, and nineteen days of the three weeks’ limit he had
+set himself were gone. But they broke into it that same afternoon. He
+barely left the mine until the following morning, but he finally sought
+his cabin and bed satisfied that the recovered vein of copper pyrite
+was, like the original, six feet thick and as rich in values. When he
+awoke he remembered Ida’s note, and although it had provoked a frown of
+annoyance when he read it, his spirits were now so ebullient that he
+not only admitted the justice of her demand, but would have granted
+almost anyone a reasonable request.
+Moreover, as he reread the note, its restraint and dignity struck
+him forcibly, as well as its remote likeness to the Ida Hook he had
+wooed in Nine Mile Cañon. Certainly she had made the most of her
+opportunities!
+And apparently she had recovered from her first disappointment, or
+pique--if, indeed, she had felt either--and he assumed that the
+last year, crowded with exceptional experiences, had made her over
+into something like a woman of the world. No doubt among her many
+accomplishments she had acquired self-control. (That she might also
+have acquired finesse did not occur to him.) He dismissed the fear
+that she would make a scene--and himself thoroughly uncomfortable. On
+the whole it would be interesting to see Ida as a bird of paradise.
+He remembered her in shirtwaists and serviceable skirts, and recalled
+that he had sometimes thought it a pity she should not have the plumage
+worthy of her beauty and style.
+And if the fates had willed that he must meet Ora Blake again he
+preferred that the first interview should be in public.
+He rang up Pony and in the course of half an hour was connected with
+Butte.
+“Hello!” he said cordially, as he heard his wife’s voice. “Got your
+letter, but couldn’t find time to answer before. I’ll come to the
+dinner with pleasure.”
+“Oh, I am so glad.” Ida’s tones were crisp and cool. There was none of
+the husky warmth that Gregory suddenly remembered; nor any of the old
+common inflection. “Are your evening togs at Mark’s?”
+“Yes, will you send for them?”
+“I’ll have everything here in one of the spare rooms. The maid will
+show you up if you are late. It takes me hours to dress.”
+“All right. Say--Ida--I wish you’d persuade Mrs. Blake to give up that
+idea of coming out here. It won’t work. She’ll only be in the way of
+the men, and if there was a big row on would be one more responsibility
+for her manager. I suppose she knows I’ve opened up her mine. Besides,
+it’s no place for a woman anyhow. There are only a few women--miners’
+wives--in my camp; none in the others.”
+“I’ve told her all that. But--well--you don’t know Ora.
+Gambling--taking long chances--is in her blood, I guess. You should
+have seen her at Monte Carlo. You must take in Mrs. Cameron, but I am
+putting Ora on your left as it is time you two got acquainted. Try to
+dissuade her. I want her to stay here with me.”
+“I’ll do my best. How are you getting on? Butte still panning out?”
+“I adore Butte and find nothing to change. It’s too wonderful--to have
+all your old dreams come true like this! I hope your mine is behaving.
+I heard a rumour the other day that you had lost your vein----”
+“Just found it again!”
+Ida noted the exultant ring of his voice, and was about to laugh when
+she changed her tactics swiftly. “Good! I know just how fine you
+feel--and that it wasn’t the loss of money that worried you either.
+Well, the dinner will be a sort of celebration. Good-bye.”
+“Good-bye.” There was a faint accent of surprise in Gregory’s voice.
+Ida smiled and returned to her interrupted toilette.
+“Just let me get a good chance at him once more,” she thought. “I’ll be
+eating copper before I get through, but I don’t know him or his sex if
+he won’t be nibbling off the same chunk.”
+VII
+The next week was the busiest she had ever known. All the people
+that had called on her called again on Ora. Her cook collapsed when
+told to prepare a dinner for twenty-eight people, and Ida, who would
+not hearken to a public caterer and his too familiar idiosyncrasies,
+telegraphed to St. Paul for a chef. What moments she had to spare after
+consultations with this autocrat, with a temperamental designer of menu
+cards, and with two high-handed young women whom she had been persuaded
+by the charitable Mrs. Cameron to engage to decorate her rooms, were
+spent with certain works on copper and mining that she had procured
+from the public library.
+She looked forward to the evening of her dinner party with a secret
+excitement that seemed to fork its lightning into every recess of her
+brain, and electrify it with a sense of the fulness of life--that
+hinted intoxicatingly of life’s perfections. Not only was she to live
+the wildest dream of Ida Hook, but she had made up her mind to bring
+the most important man in Montana to her feet on that triumphant night.
+That the man was her husband, won the first time without an effort,
+lost through her own indifference and ignorance, added tenfold to the
+zest of the game. She knew the impression he must retain of her: crude,
+obvious in her sex allurement, cheaply dressed, a sort of respectable
+mining-camp siren; all her fascinations second-rate, and her best
+points in the eyes of an absent-minded husband her good-natured
+mothering and admirable cooking.
+If she had returned to find him as she had left him, a mere brilliant
+hard-working student, and automatically attentive to his home partner,
+no doubt she would have slipped into her original rôle at once, for she
+was normally amiable, and she had strict ideas of wifely duties, which
+her insistent vanity and deliberate flirtations never for a moment
+endangered. They also filled the practical wants of a nature not
+derived from artistic ancestors. She had had her “flyer”, and, allowing
+for social triumphs, returned to Butte to settle down; although it
+had been with a certain complacency that she had reflected during the
+homeward journey upon the altered circumstances which would enable her
+to live like a civilised being in her own apartments and see far less
+of her husband than formerly.
+Her complacency had been treated to a succession of shocks since her
+return; it had, in fact, finally gasped out its life; although it had
+left self-confidence behind to sit at the feet of her shrewd clear
+mind. She found a zest entirely new in bringing to his knees a man who
+had been her husband when she was too raw and conceited to appreciate
+him, who had developed into a personage, and who had conquered his mere
+maleness and put women out of his life: she had consulted a detective
+agency and convinced herself that her only rival was the mine. Ida was
+nothing if not practical. Before preparing for her siege she chose to
+know exactly where she stood. A rival of her sex would have demanded
+one sort of tactics; a mere mine and the quickened business instinct
+of a dreaming but outclassing brain, although she did not underrate
+their peculiar dead walls and buffers, exacted a different and more
+impersonal assault--at first.
+Much that she had failed to understand in her young husband was clear
+to her now. His silences, his formidable powers of concentration, his
+habit of thinking out his purposes unto the smallest detail before
+verbal expression, his tendency to dream, combined with lightning
+processes of thought, were the indispensable allies of his peculiar
+gifts: she had talked with too many brilliant and active men during the
+past year, to say nothing of her daily association with Ora, for whose
+inherited and progressive intellect she had the highest respect, and
+her own development had been too positive, rapid, and normal, not to be
+fully aware that men born with the genius to conquer life were equipped
+with powerful imaginations that necessarily made them silent thinkers.
+She had become intensely proud of her husband since her return, and his
+neglect, coupled with his scrupulous generosity, had stung her pride
+and aroused both desire and determination to recapture what she had
+lost. She had no great faith in her capacity for love; but not only
+was she fascinated by Gregory for the first time but she found him more
+worthy of her accomplished coquetry than any man she had met in Europe.
+She was firm in her resolve to repossess her husband, but not merely to
+satisfy that pride which was the evolution of a more primitive vanity;
+she felt a certain joyousness, a lilt of the spirit, at the thought of
+spending her life with him, of being the complete helpmate of such a
+man; even a disposition to dream, which was so new in her experience
+that she banished it with a frown. “If I let go like other fool women,
+I’ll make a grand mess of it,” was her characteristic reflection.
+She was dressing for the dinner when she heard him enter the house. The
+parlour maid for once remembered her instructions, and led him up to
+his room, which was on the opposite side of the hall from his wife’s
+and at the extreme end. Her door was ajar, she heard his voice--whose
+depth and richness were decimated by the telephone--his light foot
+ascending the stair. For the moment she lost her breath, then with
+an angry jerk of the shoulders regained her poise, and, in tones
+careless enough to reassure any husband suddenly overwhelmed with the
+awkwardness of his position, called out:
+“Good evening, Gregory. Hope you’ll find everything you want in your
+room. Ring if you don’t. See you downstairs.”
+“Oh--thanks!” Gregory swallowed an immense sigh of relief. “I’ll be on
+time.”
+Ida, assisted by the “upstairs girl”--she had not yet found a ladies’
+maid willing to come to Butte--continued her toilette. Her gown was
+as nearly Renaissance as she thought her native Northwest would
+stand at this stage of her social progress. It was “built”--a word
+more appropriate to woman’s dress A.D. 1600 than today--of heavy
+turquoise-blue brocade, the design outlined here and there with gold
+thread. The long wrinkled sleeves almost covered her hands, and,
+like the deep square of the neck, were tipped with fur. Her mass of
+blue-black hair was closely twisted around her head from brow to the
+nape of her neck, held above the low forehead by a jewelled stiletto
+Ora had given her in Genoa, “to remind her of her midnight diversions
+in the Renaissance palace over which her dim ancestral memories
+brooded.” This she had dismissed as damn nonsense, but she liked the
+stiletto with its rudely set stones, and had promised to wear it the
+first time she got inside one of her near-Renaissance gowns.
+The pale subtle blue of the dress made her eyes look light and
+altogether blue, the thick black underlashes and full white underlids
+giving them an expression when in repose of cold voluptuousness. Her
+skin against the dark edge of fur was as white as warm new milk.
+Her costume and her regal air would have made her noticeable in the
+proudest assemblage. She was well aware that not only was she a very
+beautiful woman tonight but a dangerous one. And she might have stepped
+from one of the tarnished frames in the Palazzo Valdobia.
+After the maid had been dismissed, she examined herself even more
+critically. The coral of lip and cheek, while still eloquent of youth
+and health, was more delicate than of old; all suggestion of buxomness
+had disappeared. She looked older than when she had left Butte; the
+casual observer would have given her thirty years; her cheeks were
+less full, her mouth had firmer lines; the cold grey-blue eyes more
+depth, justified their classic setting. Even her profile, released by
+the finer contour of cheek and thrown into high relief by the severe
+arrangement of her hair, contributed to the antique harmonies of her
+head and form.
+“You’ll do,” she said to her image, and went down stairs.
+Several guests arrived at once and she was standing before her antique
+English chimneypiece carved in California, chatting with three of
+them when Gregory entered the room. She nodded amiably as if they
+had met too recently for formalities. He took the cue and paused to
+exchange a few words with two men that stood near the door. But Ida
+had seen the startled opening of his narrow eyes which meant so much
+in him. She also noted that, as other guests came in, he looked at
+her again and again. In truth Gregory was startled almost out of his
+trained stolidity. He had known a certain side of Ida’s cleverness,
+and believed when he sent her abroad that she would make much of her
+opportunities, the greatest of which was her constant association
+with Ora Blake; but that she would return in less than a year looking
+the great lady, and the handsomest woman he had ever seen, even his
+energetic imagination had failed to consider. Magnetism, as of old,
+surrounded her like an aura, but to this he was insensible, his own
+magnetism having been caught and entangled with that of another. He
+felt very proud of his wife, however, and, with a sudden impulse
+of loyalty, he crossed the room and stood at her side. He also was
+prompted to say in a tone pitched to reach other ears:
+“By George, you are simply stunning. I haven’t seen
+this--a--frock--dress--before.”
+“Gown, my dear, gown. It only arrived a few days ago. I shall take you
+to Europe with me next time--”
+“Take him soon!” said Mrs. Cameron. “Don’t give him time to wear out
+before he has begun to live. Our tired business men!”
+“Next year!” said Ida, gayly. “He has half-promised and I’ll not let
+him off.” As she looked into his eyes with bright friendliness, his
+face relaxed with the smile which, she suddenly remembered, always had
+won her from anger or indifference. He was openly delighted with her,
+the more completely as he was both puzzled and relieved to see that
+those splendid eyes held neither cold anger nor feminine reproach.
+Moreover, although they softened for an instant before she was obliged
+to turn away, it was with an expression that made her look merely sweet
+and womanly, not in the least coquette or siren. Other guests claimed
+her attention. He heard her give a little hiss, and saw her eyes flash.
+Then he forgot her. Ora had entered the room.
+Her gown, of some soft imponderable fabric that gave the impression
+of depth in colour, was the peculiar flaming blue of the night sky of
+Montana. Gregory was reminded instantly of the night they had sat on
+the steps of the School of Mines, with the pulsing sky so close above
+them. The upper part of the gown was cut in points that curved above
+her slight bust, the spaces between filled with snow-white chiffon
+which appeared to be folded softly about the body. She wore her pearls,
+but at the base of her slender throat was a closely fitting string of
+Montana sapphires, of the same hot almost angry blue. Her little head
+with its masses of soft ashen hair seemed to sway on the long stem-like
+neck, her stellar eyes blazed. Her costume extinguished every other
+blue in the room.
+“Really!” said Mrs. Cameron, whose black eyes under her coronet of
+iron grey hair were snapping, “these two dear friends should have had
+a consultation over their costumes for tonight.” She had never liked
+Ora, and although, as the leader of Butte society, she made a point of
+speaking well of all whom she did not feel obliged to ignore, she had
+taken a deep liking to Ida; moreover, always a handsome woman herself,
+she felt both sympathetic and indignant. This was Ida’s night, and she
+scented treachery.
+She had addressed her remark to Gregory, but although he looked at
+her politely he would not have heard thunder crashing on the roof. He
+wondered if he were standing erect; he had a confused impression that
+that wonderful blue gown was burning alcohol whose fumes were in his
+head and whose flames swirled through all his senses. And the woman
+within those curling blue flames was so much more beautiful than his
+memory of her that he forgot not only his recent tribute to Ida, but
+her bare existence until she tapped him sharply on the arm.
+“Dinner has been announced,” she said. “You are to take in Mrs.
+Cameron.” Ida was smiling again; she had dismissed anger and annoyance;
+nothing was to dim the radiance of her spirits tonight. She and Ora
+would be at opposite ends of the table, and she could keep the length
+of the drawing-room between them when they returned.
+Gregory’s face never betrayed him, particularly when he kept his
+eyelids down, and, as he shook hands with Ora in the dining-room he
+told her he was glad to see her again as casually as if his hand had
+not tingled to crush hers. He talked with Mrs. Cameron, however, as
+long as possible, but when her attention was claimed by the man on her
+right, he was obliged to turn to Ora. By this time his blood was still.
+Eating is commonplace work, and talking the inevitable platitudes of a
+dinner’s earlier courses will steady the most riotous pulses.
+Ora smiled impersonally; her eyes might have beheld the husband of her
+friend for the first time.
+“I am so glad to be able to ask you something about my mine,” she said.
+“Ida tells me that you have reopened it.”
+“Yes, they are already through the fault and driving for the vein.
+There happened to be a good man here looking for a job when I got
+Mark’s telegram, a young engineer from the East, named Raymond. The
+miners are good capable men, too, and as Osborne and Douglas installed
+a compressor, the work should be pretty quick. I fancy you’ll recover
+the vein in a week or two.”
+“I wonder if I shall? Mark thinks you infallible, but it seems too good
+to be true.”
+“The vein is there, about a hundred feet down, but how rich it is I do
+not venture to predict.”
+“Well, never mind,” Ora smiled happily. “I shall have the fun of
+looking for it, and I want to be with the men when they find it.”
+“Oh--Ah--It really would be better for you to give up that idea of
+going out there to stay----”
+“I thought I would give to you the opportunity to say that at once! Do
+go on and relieve your mind.”
+“It is neither safe nor desirable,” he said sulkily. “I may have a row
+on my hands any minute. Your men and my men are a decent lot, but the
+Apex have employed a lot of scum so ignorant that there is no knowing
+what they may do in a crisis--in the hope of currying favour with
+their superiors. They would merely be made scapegoats or--canned--I
+beg pardon, fired--but they don’t know that, and they’re as hard a lot
+as Europe ever kicked on to our dump heap. Better stay here for the
+present.”
+“I’ve sent out all the furniture for the bungalow, and Custer and a
+Chinaman to put it in order. I suppose my engineer can camp in the
+other cottage until it is finished. That is quite close to mine, I
+understand.”
+“Oh, of course--but why not stay at my ranch house----”
+“That is too far from the scene of operations. Please don’t bother
+about me. I should hate to think I was on your mind--you have enough! I
+shall be well protected, and I’ve even bought an automatic. I suppose
+being a born Westerner I should call it a gun. But it’s such a little
+one. I shall carry it always----”
+“Yes, promise that.”
+“I’ve even had a little bag made, like those they wore years ago, to
+fasten to my belt, and I shall keep it in that.”
+“Very well.” He dismissed the subject. “I--ah--there’s something I
+heard today, but perhaps I should not speak of it. Only Mark is such an
+old friend of mine----”
+“I suppose you saw Mr. Luning and he told you that we are to separate.”
+“Yes, that is it.”
+“I intend to live in Europe: I suppose you think that a callous reason.”
+“It’s as good as most reasons for divorce in this country. When is Mark
+coming back?”
+“Not for two months. Nothing will be done until then. I want to have my
+mining experience first and I shall leave Montana as soon as the papers
+are served.”
+“Ah!”
+Her partner claimed her at the moment and, his own still being
+occupied, he observed her furtively. He thought that she too looked
+older, but not because advantages had improved her; rather--he groped
+for the words that would give definiteness to his impression--as if
+some experience had saddened her. She had a softer expression. The
+blood rushed to his head and he almost choked with jealousy, his
+intuitions carrying him straight to the truth. “By God! She has loved
+some man,” he thought. Then he set his teeth. So much the better.
+But when she turned to him again, he said impulsively, although his
+tones were light:
+“You never did fit this Western life of ours. Of course you have found
+a more civilised mate in Europe?”
+“You are all wrong,” she said gaily. “My only love at present is my
+mine. My mine! You should understand if anybody can.”
+“Oh, yes, I understand that magnet. But I naturally thought----”
+“What everybody else will think when the news is out. But I am
+astonished that you should jump at anything so commonplace.” Her heart
+was hammering under the concentrated intensity of his gaze; and as
+if he realised suddenly that he might be betraying himself he said
+sarcastically:
+“As there are--I was told today--no less than six divorces pending in
+this set which my wife has the honour to entertain tonight, and as all
+are to intermarry, so to speak, when liberated, my conclusion in your
+case was probably due to the force of suggestion.”
+“Well, I forgive you if you promise to believe none of the absurd
+stories you are sure to hear. I am in love with freedom. Now tell me
+what you think of Ida? Isn’t she wonderful?”
+Gregory looked down the table at his wife sitting between the two most
+important men in Butte and entertaining both with animated dignity. She
+met his eyes and smiled brilliantly. She knew that he was proud of her;
+she had accomplished the second manœuvre in her flank attack: her first
+had been to put him at his ease.
+“Yes,” he said to Ora. “She is. It is almost beyond belief. And she is
+your handiwork!” The two might have been life-long intimates, and Ida
+a mere kinswoman of both, so little did the oddity of this discussion
+occur to Gregory at least.
+“And in a way my present to you.” Ora spoke with a charming
+graciousness. “Mark had given me a tremendous idea of your abilities.
+The day I met Ida I saw her possibilities, and I made up my mind then
+and there that when the world claimed you your wife should be not only
+an inspiration but equipped to render you the practical and social help
+that every rising man needs. Isn’t it splendid to think that she will
+always sit at the head of your table?”
+Gregory was staring hard at her again. “You did that deliberately?” he
+asked.
+“Yes. Deliberately. Ida is so clever that she was bound to develop with
+your rising fortunes, particularly if you sent her to Europe. But it
+would have taken longer. I couldn’t wait. My father inspired me with
+the deepest admiration and respect for our Western men. I had made up
+my mind that you were born into the front rank, and I wanted, as a
+Western woman, and my father’s daughter, to do something to help you.
+Tell me that you are satisfied and that you are as proud of Ida as she
+is of you--that--that--you simply adore her.” She did not flinch, and
+looked him straight in the eyes, her own full of young, almost gushing,
+enthusiasm. Her heart had almost stopped beating.
+“I certainly am proud of her, and grateful to you. No doubt she will be
+very helpful if I am forced into politics to conserve my interests.”
+His tones were flat. He had come to his senses, and he was too loyal
+to hint that he no longer loved his wife: but Ora’s face was suddenly
+flooded with a lovely colour, and her eyes looked like grey mist
+through which the sun was bursting. She asked him,
+“Aren’t you going to stay with us for a few days! We’d love to have
+you?”
+“I take the 6.10 for Pony in the morning. If I disappear before the
+others it will be to snatch a few hours’ sleep in that gorgeous
+four-poster in my room. After living in two rooms for so long I am
+oppressed with all this magnificence----”
+“Two rooms!” Ora’s voice rang out like an excited child’s. Gregory,
+marvelling at the quick transitions of her sex, thought he had never
+seen anyone look so happy. The gentle melancholy that had roused his
+jealousy was obliterated. “Two rooms!”
+“There is another shack just beyond where my Chinaman cooks for me, and
+bunks, but I have only a bedroom and office--and a bathroom of sorts.
+Even my secretary sleeps at the ranch house.”
+“You dear innocent millionaire. No doubt the proletariat, reading of
+your sudden wealth, and cursing you, pictures you wallowing in luxury.
+Well, you shall come and sit sometimes in my comfortable living-room.
+It is time you relearned the a, b, c, of comfort--before you relapse
+into the pioneer.”
+“Your bungalow looks as if it could be made very homelike.” He spoke
+with unconscious wistfulness, and she raised friendly and impersonal
+eyes to his.
+“You shall see. I have what the French call the gift of installation,
+and I have sent out nice things. I shall make tea for you when you come
+to the surface at the end of the afternoon shift, and you shall sit in
+the deepest of my chairs.”
+“It sounds like heaven,” said Gregory, who despised tea.
+Professor Becke, who had taken her in, and Mrs. Cameron simultaneously
+addressed their temporary partners, and Gregory was now to listen to
+an account, both spirited and kindly, of the admiration his wife had
+excited in her native town. Mrs. Cameron suspected the breach, in spite
+of the clever acting of both, and made up her mind to do what she could
+to bridge it. She had not an inkling of the cause, for, like Ida, she
+knew nothing of that fateful hour on the steps of the School of Mines;
+but as there was no gossip abroad about either Gregory or his wife,
+she inferred that it was one of those misunderstandings that so often
+separate young couples, always prone to take themselves too seriously.
+She knew that Gregory would value her praise; he not only had been
+fond of her as a schoolboy, when he spent an occasional Saturday
+with her son, but he knew that her experience of the world was very
+wide. She was a woman whom long years of wealth had enabled to travel
+extensively, she visited intimately at some of the greatest country
+homes in Europe, and she had her own position in New York. She subtly
+made Gregory feel prouder still of Ida, and then said teasingly:
+“It is well that you have her devotion. I know of three men that are
+quite off their heads about her----”
+“Ah? Who are they?” A sultan may weary of his sultana, but his sultana
+she is all the same.
+“That I’ll not tell you. Even your wife could not, I fancy. I’ve never
+seen a woman treat men with a more careless impartiality. What a
+relief--with all these divorces pending. Merely a shuffling of cards,
+too, I understand. It is disgusting. I asked your wife as a personal
+favour to me to invite none of them tonight. Butte either has long
+orgies of respectability or goes quite off her head.”
+“My wife is singularly indifferent to men for a beautiful woman,”
+replied Gregory, comfortably ignorant of his beautiful wife’s
+depredations abroad. “Nor is she likely to countenance divorce. She has
+a good deal of her old New England mother in her.” He had a haughty
+contempt for explanations as a rule, but his quick instinct had caught
+the significance of his companion’s remarks; knowing that Ida must wish
+to stand well with this amiable but rigid arbiter of Butte’s court of
+last resort, he added:
+“I am sorry not to be in Butte oftener, and give her what little
+assistance a man may, but it is all I can do to leave the mine for a
+few hours every week or two.”
+“That is the fate of too many of our American women married to our
+too busy American men. But--well--Gregory--I have married sons and
+daughters, and I am an old friend of yours. Young wives must not be
+neglected, and resentment eats like a cancer until women are old enough
+to be philosophical. Just think that over.” And before he could answer
+Ida gave the signal and the men were left alone.
+VIII
+As the women dispersed about the long drawing-room Ora laid her arm
+lightly round the waist of Ida, who was standing for the moment apart.
+“Your dinner is a tremendous success, my dear,” she said, “and so are
+you. That gown! It makes mine look so crude. I wish I had worn white as
+I intended until the last minute. How splendidly everything went off.
+Not a detail to criticise, and every woman has worn something new from
+New York or Paris. But you--well, Ida, you are always beautiful, of
+course, but tonight you are something more than lovely.”
+“Oh, am I?” Ida gave a little gasp, forgetting her passing astonishment
+at so much tribute from Ora at once. “Well, I ought to be. I never felt
+quite like this in all my life. Geewhil--no, I’m too happy even for
+slang. I wish I could sing.”
+Ora sighed. “I’ve always known you would get everything you wanted, and
+I can guess just how you feel tonight. You are a complete success. How
+many people ever are able to say that?”
+“Yes, I feel as if I owned the earth!” But her brows met in a puzzled
+frown. “I never felt, though, as if even the conquest of Butte would
+all but send me off my head. I never feel very much excited about any
+old thing; it’s not my make; but I’ve got a sort of shiver inside of
+me, and a watery feeling in the heart region. If that chef had spoilt
+the dinner I’d have gone out and wrung his neck.”
+“Well, nothing can go wrong now. The worst is over, and no dinner was
+ever more delicious. Why don’t you let them dance? I know that Mrs.
+O’Hara plays.”
+“Good idea! I’ll ring this minute for a few of those extra near-waiters
+to take out the rugs and move the furniture.”
+Two of the younger women, who had returned not long since from San
+Francisco, were showing their scandalised friends the turkey-trot when
+the men came down the hall from the dining-room. Ida drew Gregory aside.
+“Tell me,” she asked, with an eager almost childish note in her voice
+new to him. “Did it go off well? Am I all I ought to be after all the
+money you have spent on me? Do I look nice in my fine clothes?”
+Gregory patted her on the shoulder. “I know little about such things,”
+he said kindly, “but it outclassed all the banquets I’ve been obliged
+to attend in the last six or eight months. I felt quite proud that it
+was in my own house--yours, to be literal--and Mrs. Blake assured me
+that she had never seen anything better done.”
+“Ora is an angel, and without her--but you know all that. Tell
+me--well, Gregory, I want a good old-fashioned compliment!”
+His voice lost its bantering tone and became formal with gallantry:
+“You are, as ever, the handsomest woman in Montana. I shouldn’t wonder
+a bit if those New York reporters were right and that you are the
+handsomest woman in America.”
+Ida looked for a long moment into his eyes. Again her brows met in a
+puzzled frown, this time because her singular lightness of spirit had
+fled abruptly. She was too proud, too far developed beyond the old Ida,
+to put forth the arts of the siren until they were alone; but she asked
+softly, and again with that almost childish naïveté:
+“Do you really admire me?”
+“You are all right,” he said with a heartiness that masked a sudden
+misgiving. “I must come in and take you to the theatre the next time a
+good show comes to town. Let me know. I’ll gratify my vanity by sitting
+beside you in a box----”
+“There’s a play tomorrow night. Stay over!”
+“I’m sorry. I don’t dare. Apex is sinking for all she’s worth. We may
+have a set-to any minute. It was a risk even to come away for a night.”
+“Oh, do let me go out, and down into the mine----”
+“I should think not. And do your best to keep Mrs. Blake in Butte for
+at least a week.”
+“Well, let me go out when the danger is over. I long to see
+chalcopyrite in the vein. I saw some beautiful specimens at the School
+of Mines the other day. It looks like pure gold.”
+He looked at her in amazement. “What on earth do you know about ores?
+Did you include Freiberg in your itinerary?”
+“This is Butte, remember. I no sooner returned than I realised how
+interesting she was.”
+“Ah, well, when this affair is settled, come out and stay with Mrs.
+Blake and I’ll take you down. I’ve no place to put you up. Even the
+ranch house is full. Mrs. Blake’s manager and foreman are boarding
+there at present, and Oakley also puts up my secretary----”
+“And those crops Oakley put in with such enthusiasm?” cried Ida with a
+sudden inspiration, and racking her memory. “Did they turn out as he
+expected? Was there a drought--in--in--those states?”
+“What a memory you have! Yes, Oakley is doing wonders, and the drought
+arrived as per schedule. He would scorn to put the ranch under the
+ditch, although that is my long suit at present.”
+“I suppose Circle-G Ranch looks like Holland by this time.”
+“Not quite yet! But the work is progressing splendidly, all except----”
+He paused. It had never been his habit to talk to her, and the
+complicated details of business he regarded as beyond the intelligent
+apprehension of any woman. But as Ida moved closer to him with
+wide-open eyes she looked intelligent enough to understand anything,
+and a letter received that morning had been on his mind ever since.
+“There is some trouble about the railroad,” he said. “The Land Company
+was to build it, but either doesn’t want the bother or really has lost
+a lot of money, as it claims. I placed a deed in escrow which pledges
+me to build it if the Land Company failed to keep its agreement; and
+the seed houses, which bought several large blocks of land, and a
+number of private settlers are demanding that the railroad be begun--it
+was to be finished at the end of a year----”
+Ida saw her opportunity and grasped it. “We both must do our duty, and
+not monopolise each other,” she said hurriedly. “But tell me all about
+it after they have gone. Now, go and dance with Kitty Collier. She’s
+the best-looking woman in Butte. I can’t dance in this harness, but
+I’ll talk English politics with my portlier guests.” As he smiled and
+moved toward the music, she laid her hand lightly on his arm. “I want
+to thank you for coming tonight, Gregory,” she said. “It means a great
+deal to me socially. Besides, it is good to see you again.” And this
+time she looked very sweet; but there was a slight aloofness in her
+manner, as if to admonish him that, although he was forgiven, there was
+still a breach which it was for him to close. Then she added lightly:
+“Well, we’ll talk it all over later. Go, now, and dance.”
+       *       *       *       *       *
+Gregory stood by the front door talking to two of the men, whose wives
+had walked on; their homes were but a door or two away. Ida ran up the
+stairs to Ora’s room, where they unhooked each other.
+“You look tired,” said Ida, sympathetically.
+“Oh, I am tired,” replied Ora, her arms hanging. “Tired. Tired.”
+“It’s a long while since you danced like that. Just drop into bed. Lend
+me a scarf, will you?”
+She covered her opened gown with the lace and walked slowly over to
+her room. Then she suddenly turned back to the head of the stairs. The
+three men were still talking below.
+“Gregory,” she called, and her voice was very sweet.
+“Yes?”
+“Lock up, will you? The servants have gone to bed.”
+“I will.”
+“Don’t forget,” and omitting to add a good-night, she went swiftly to
+her room, changed her formal evening gown for a soft combination of
+yellow silk and lace that made her look like a tulip in a primrose bed,
+let down the black masses of her hair, and threw herself into a deep
+chair. But there was no repose in her attitude. More than once her body
+stiffened and she raised her head. Pride and shrewdness forbade her
+to leave her door open, and it would be impossible to hear that light
+panther-like tread on the heavy carpet of the stair. The front door
+might have closed while she was changing in the dressing-room.
+Suddenly she heard it slam. Nervous as she was she smiled
+reminiscently. Gregory might be soft of foot, but otherwise he was as
+noisy as most men. Then the smile froze until her lips were distended
+in a grin. Another door had slammed. Gregory was in his own room.
+After a few moments she became aware that her body was rigid and that
+she was grasping the arms of her chair. She rose with an exclamation of
+impatience, but stood with her head bent, listening intently. Suddenly
+she swayed a little, once more flooded with that sense of excited
+gladness with which guests and chefs had had naught to do: she thought
+she heard a door open softly, a light footfall. But her straining
+ear-drums had deceived her. The house was as still as a mausoleum.
+She pressed her hands against her breast in the gesture the stage has
+borrowed from life; her heart felt as if swimming against an undertow.
+Then she began pacing up and down. After her habit she tried to arrange
+her thoughts by putting them into words, and, as people still do off
+the stage, muttered them aloud.
+“My God! Do I care as much as that? Do I really _care_? No! No! No!
+Any woman of pride, let alone vanity, would make up her mind to bring
+her husband back--especially if she could make him as proud of her
+as I made him of me tonight. And when he still thinks me beautiful.
+What woman wouldn’t? Even if she didn’t have an ounce of any kind of
+feeling for him? Men are only interesting when they forget about us in
+that purely masculine world where women are warned off the grass. To
+lure them back--that is the spice of life in this country. And if one
+doesn’t succeed the first time--he may be so tired and sleepy that he’s
+forgotten about me--or shy, afraid I’d laugh at him--the world does not
+come to an end tonight--What an idiot I am! I made him admire me more
+than ever, astonished him--why am I not satisfied for the present?--It
+can’t be that I care--that I long for him to come--Good God! I’d rather
+be dead than _that_!”
+But she went to the door and, laying her ear against it, listened until
+she became aware that her lungs were bursting with imprisoned breath.
+Then she sank into a chair trembling, her eyes filled with fear. A
+moment more and she flung her arms over the table and dropped her face
+upon them and broke into heavy weeping.
+IX
+Ora looked round the large living-room of her bungalow with a deep
+sense of content. The walls were covered with a material coarse in
+weave and of a red warm but not too bright. The colour was repeated in
+the divan and chairs, melting softly into browns that harmonised with
+the heavy beams of the ceiling. A few Navajo rugs covered the floor.
+Above the divan of many cushions was a bookshelf crowded with the new
+fiction of two continents. Several shelves, built like a bookcase,
+occupied a corner and were furnished more ponderously. In the middle
+of the room a large table was half covered with the best periodicals
+of the day, although there was room for a large lamp with a red shade
+and a vase filled with wild flowers. Down at the far end of the room,
+which was about thirty feet long, and opposite the kitchen, were
+the dining-table and a small sideboard. The main door opened upon a
+verandah, and one beside the fireplace into a narrow hall, giving
+privacy to the bedrooms. Ora had no atavistic yearnings for the life
+of the pioneer; she might feel as much at home in a bungalow as in a
+palace, but elementals, save when pictorially valuable, like overhead
+beams, were rigidly excluded.
+Her hands clasped behind her, she drifted up and down the long room,
+her mode of ambulation expressing the state of her mind. Quick and
+final as she could be in decision, if necessity spurred, the deeper
+sensuousness in her nature impelled her to drift whenever circumstances
+would permit. For two months she intended to drift--or gamble! She had
+not come out here further to alienate the affections of her friend’s
+husband, and those old tumultuous dreams were still crowded in some
+remote brain cell with seals on the door. She had even told herself in
+so many words that she had no desire for anything so terrific as their
+complete materialisation. She had plumbed the depth and intensity of
+life in her imagination. Let that suffice. And reality was not so much
+to be feared because of the wreck it might make of her life as because
+it was reasonably sure to leave a corpse in her memory, instead of that
+ever burning soul of past delights.
+But she had come out to her mine to enjoy the constant companionship
+of Gregory Compton before she left her country for ever and married
+a European. That much she owed to the extraordinary imaginative
+experience in which they had been one. If she could spend long hours
+with him, make him as eager for her companionship as she was for his,
+forget his mine now and then, feel that mysterious and satisfying bond
+of the spirit, she would ask no more, not even an admission of love
+when they parted.
+When a woman goes on a still hunt for a man’s soul she is far more
+dangerous than the obvious siren, for her self-delusion is complete,
+her guards are down, her wiles disarming. Ora had had too little
+practical experience of men to be prepared to admit, in spite of her
+abstract knowledge of life, that there has been but one foundation of
+love since the world began, and never will be another till life on
+this planet ends, whatever may be the starry mysteries of the spheres.
+But while she was (spasmodically) too honest to deny even her own sex
+encumbrance, she believed, like many other, particularly American women
+of narrow experience, that it had been politely emasculated by the
+higher civilisation, was merely synonymous with poetry, romance, and
+sentiment. This convention was imported to the New World by England’s
+middle-class and became a convenient national superstition. It is on
+the wane.
+That Gregory, granted she were successful in capturing his soul, might
+desire to contribute the rest of himself to the spoils, now that she no
+longer was the wife of his friend, let loose those subversive passions
+she had divined the night of their meeting and dared to recognise in
+the realm of imagination, she would have refused to admit had the
+possibility occurred to her. She was out for the ideal, and not yet had
+she learned to take her imagination in hand like a refractory child.
+Moreover, she had an imperious will, gracefully as she concealed it.
+This last year of freedom and wealth and feminine triumphs had tempered
+that will into a pliable and dangerous weapon. What she wanted she
+would have. As she planned a thing so should it work out. But the
+details--ah, they were veiled in the future, and from their mysteries
+came this reflex vibration, this pleasant sense of drifting, of
+wondering how it would all begin and what would happen next.
+In a sense it had begun. Gregory had called two days before to ask
+if she were comfortable. He was in his overalls (purposely), and had
+refused at first to sit down, but finally had succumbed to the deepest
+of the chairs before the log fire. He had finished by remaining for
+supper, and again had occupied the chair until eleven o’clock. Neither
+had suspected the other’s secret passion, for love before union, being
+nine parts imagination, needs solitude for indulgence, and is capable,
+moreover, of long and satisfying quietudes if fed with externals. There
+was sheer delight in sitting together by that warm intimate fire,
+at the dining-table at the end of the long shadowy room, in feeling
+cut off from the world on the edge of that rough mountain camp, in
+listening to the soughing of the pines during the silences. That both
+were on their guard lest the other take fright and the experience
+be impossible of repetition but exaggerated the atmosphere of
+friendliness, of almost sexless comradeship. Gregory betrayed one only
+of his reflections: he admitted to himself what Ora subtly compelled
+him to admit, and had no difficulty in divining, that the companionship
+of woman was a blessed thing, and that he had been the loneliest of men.
+Their talk was mainly of ores! She was permitted to learn how little
+else interested him in comparison with the enthralling inside of
+Montana. But he told her also the legends of the great copper mines on
+Lake Superior, so old that copper was found pure, looking much like the
+smelted product from the copper ores of the later geological formations
+of the Rocky Mountains. These vast mines, particularly that on Isle
+Royal, bore unmistakable signs of having been worked systematically
+by a prehistoric people experienced in mining; presumably by the
+Atlantans, who, after their own mines were worked out and they still
+demanded “orichalcum” for their monuments and bronze for their
+implements, went annually in ships for the metal. That there had been
+a self-supporting mining colony on Isle Royal was indicated by certain
+agricultural remains.
+Gregory and Ora had amused themselves reconstructing that old time
+when the metal island was as lively as today, and considerably more
+picturesque--owing to the alternative of skins for muck-spattered
+overalls; an underground chapter of the Niebelungenlied, its gnomes
+toiling down in those two miles of workings, stoping out less in a
+hundred years than the methods of today force a mine to yield in one.
+How they must have swarmed to the surface, regardless of discipline,
+at the first signal of the approaching ships, their one link with a
+world that was not all water and forest and underground cavern. By
+what tortuous way did those archaic ships travel from the Atlantic to
+the northwest corner of that vast inland sheet; unless, indeed, which
+is likely, subsequent upheavals have destroyed a waterway which may
+have connected sea and lake prior to 10000 B.C.[B] How many of those
+old ships lie in the bed of Lake Superior, laden with rude nuggets of
+copper, pounded from the gangue, or, who knows? smelted by a lost art
+into sheets and blocks? Archaic ships rode high, and no doubt those
+from Atlantis were overladen; for what has kept Atlantis in the realm
+of myth so long save the unscientific legend that she perished of greed
+and its vicious offspring? What archaic mysteries may not the terrible
+storms of that great north lake yet uncover? What strange variety of
+copper, washed and bitten by the waters of twelve thousand years, for
+which the enraptured geologist must find a new name? Who knows?--the
+bed of Lake Superior may be one unbroken floor of malachite; and the
+North American Indian of that region the descendant of those ancient
+miners, abandoned and forgotten when Atlantis plunged to the bottom of
+the sea.
+It was Ora who advanced these last frivolous theories, and--the clock
+striking eleven--Gregory sprang to his feet.
+“Likely as any,” he said. “All theories change about as often as it
+is time to get out a new edition of an encyclopædia, or develop a
+‘new school’ which makes its reputation by the short cut of upsetting
+the solemn conclusions of its predecessors. I’m going down into the
+mine.” He bolted out with no further ceremony, but Ora was long since
+accustomed to the manners of Western men. She went to bed feeling that
+sadness had gone out of the world.
+She had not seen him since. Nor had anything new and interesting
+happened. Her manager, Raymond, refused to take her down in the mine,
+alleging that when Apex broke into the workings of Perch of the Devil,
+there was sure to be a fight, and the bohunks would retreat, not up
+their own shaft but through the tunnels of the Primo mine. The young
+man was manifestly distressed to refuse any boon to so charming a
+woman, and he and his foreman had moved at once into the half-finished
+cottage, but he heartily wished her back in Butte, nevertheless. The
+best of miners love a fight, and it would be impossible to protect her
+from flying bullets if the row was continued above ground. Ora merely
+had laughed when he begged her to return or to remain within doors, but
+had promised to be prudent and flourished her automatic .25.
+X
+She glanced at the clock. It was half-past three. She knew that Gregory
+frequently went below in the morning, and had half expected that he
+would cross over to her hill for a moment when he came up at three
+o’clock. The drifting mood vanished. She decided that two days were
+enough for feminine passivity and went to her bedroom and changed her
+pretty house frock for a stout out-of-doors’ costume of forest green
+tweed: as she had no mind to look either the outworn Western heroine of
+romance, or a fright, she had omitted khaki from her mountain wardrobe.
+She tied a light green veil round her head, put on a pair of loose
+chamois gloves, selected a green parasol lined with pink, and went out
+to give the fates a gentle shove.
+Hitherto she had so far yielded to the solicitude of her manager as to
+take her walks through the pine woods above her bungalow, but today she
+marched deliberately through her grove and stood for several moments
+on the edge of the little bluff above the tableland on which her claim
+was located. It was her first prolonged look at the three mining
+camps, for she had arrived at night. She had driven out occasionally
+to mining camps with her father, once or twice with Mark; the scene
+was both typical and picturesquely ugly. In or near the centre of each
+claim was the shaft house; fifty feet beyond--the distance prescribed
+by law to prevent overhead fires from communicating with underground
+timbers--were the buildings containing the hoisting machinery and the
+compressed air plant. Scattered about were the shacks of the miners,
+the long bunk- and mess-houses, blacksmith and carpenter shops. Just
+below the Apex claim, and on Government land, an enterprising publican
+had established himself. On all sides were other claims of recent
+location, for there had been the inevitable rush.
+The rude buildings were grey and weather-beaten, and all traces of the
+gentle spring verdure had disappeared. About the collar of each shaft
+was an immense dump heap, waste rock brought up from the depths, and
+the highest of these was on Perch of the Devil. Near each were the ore
+bins, but these for the most part were empty, and, save on the De Smet
+hill, there was a notable absence of “double-sixes.” The Primo vein had
+not been recovered, Apex had not yet touched bottom; Gregory Compton,
+for reasons best known to himself, had changed his original plan and
+was merely uncovering his new vein, taking out as little of its ore as
+possible. His bins were furnished with ore from the second level of his
+mine, where work had proceeded steadily on the original vein.
+The men off shift were standing about in groups as they did in Butte,
+or passing in and out of the saloon. And the racket was deafening: the
+roar of the machinery in the hoisting and compressor houses, the crash
+of rock dumped from the buckets or skips, the ringing of hammer on
+anvil. The scene was not beautiful but it was alive! One could fancy
+the thrill of the hidden metals, knowing that their hour, after vast
+geological ages of waiting, was come; that, like mortals, they were to
+agonise in the crucible of life and achieve their ultimate destiny.
+Ora walked through the grove until she was beyond the long mess-house
+at the back of her claim, climbed over the abrupt rise of Apex--which,
+combined with the hardness of the rock, had made its task so long--and,
+ascertaining that the larger buildings hid her, crawled under the De
+Smet fence, and drew a long breath as she set her feet squarely on the
+famous Perch of the Devil. Here the buildings, large and small, were
+scattered up to the brow of the hill and over on the other side. It
+had, in fact, something of the appearance of a growing village with
+irregular streets; and before several of the cabins children were
+playing, or women took their Monday washing from the line. The fronts
+of some of these cottages were painted white, and here and there
+flowers grew in boxes. There were even a reading-room and a large
+“general store.” Altogether Perch of the Devil looked as if it might
+grow larger, and more solid and permanent of aspect, with the years.
+Ora walked through the crooked streets on the steep hillside until
+she reached the deep chamber into which had leached the acids of the
+centuries to enrich the ores, and incidentally Gregory Compton.
+Thousands of tons of dump made a hill in itself and shut off the view
+to the south, but below were the acres of waving wheat, the alfalfa
+with its purple flower, the sprouting flax, the winding creek that
+was often dry but sometimes wet, the brush sheds for the cattle, the
+substantial farm buildings. The broad peaceful expanse looked as
+if even a winter wind had never shaken it, so entirely did it seem
+dissociated from the frantic energies of its northeast corner. And
+still beyond was perfect beauty: the massive pine-covered mountains,
+rising tier above tier, ridges of the great Rockies, far away and up to
+the sky-cutting line, glittering with eternal snows. For a few moments
+Ora forgot the raucous noises about her, Nature delivering herself
+of her precious children with loud protesting pains. Then she turned
+suddenly and looked upward.
+Gregory had just stepped from his cabin. For a moment he did not see
+her, but stood staring, his hands in his pockets, at the distant
+mountains. He wore his favourite overalls and a battered cap on
+the back of his head; but he looked so remote in spirit from that
+materialising costume that Ora watched him with a sensation of helpless
+jealousy. Not for a moment could she delude herself that he was
+thinking of her. He looked like a seer.
+“Can you see right into the heart of those mountains?” she asked
+lightly, as she walked up the hill toward him. “You looked as if your
+imagination were ‘blocking out’ thousands of tons of gold quartz.”
+He started and coloured, but smiled with a sudden pleasure at the
+charming picture in the foreground. “Something like that. This mine
+is all right, and now that I’ve got over my disappointment, I have a
+feeling for it that I guess I’ll never have for another mine--something
+like the affection for one’s first born! But all the same I intend to
+have a gold mine one of these days. Have you been admiring my view?”
+He had walked down and joined her.
+“Yes, but that is not what I came over here for. Nor is it what I came
+out to the mines for. I brought a small library, but I find I am not in
+the humour for books. I want to be doing something myself. Mr. Raymond
+won’t take me down into my mine. I want to go down into yours--now.”
+He hesitated a moment. “Well--why not? Apex is not working this
+afternoon--something the matter with their compressor. They sounded
+pretty close to our workings this morning, but the men quit about one
+o’clock, and as they didn’t blast it was probably because the holes
+weren’t deep enough. I’ve just been told that they can’t get to work
+again before tomorrow. But you look much too fine!”
+“Everything cleans; and I’ll leave my veil and parasol in the shaft
+house.”
+“All right,” he said abruptly. “Come along.”
+When they were in the shaft house he asked, “Will you go down in the
+skip or by the ladder?”
+“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do anything so ignominious as to go down in a
+bucket, and I’m very agile. How far is it?”
+“A hundred feet. I shall only take you to the first level.”
+Ora peered down into the black and slanting and apparently bottomless
+well. A ladder was built flat against one side. A skip full of ore was
+banging against the sides of the other compartment on its way up. She
+looked again at the ladder, shuddered, and set her teeth.
+Gregory put two candles in his pocket, inserted his long limber body
+into the narrow aperture and ran down sideways.
+“Oh!” gasped Ora. “I can’t do that. Please wait. I--I think I’d better
+go down backward.”
+“By all means. Sit down and turn round. I’ll catch hold of one of your
+feet and put it on a rung. The rest will be easy.”
+Ora followed these instructions gingerly, concluding that the skip
+would have been more dignified. Then she forgot dignity and only
+wondered if her bones had gone out of her: she had rolled over on her
+equatorial zone and was kicking helplessly in the void. But as Gregory
+caught her feet and planted them safely she set her teeth once more and
+summoned her pride.
+“Glad you have on stout boots,” he said, practically. “We’ve not enough
+water in the mine for pumps, but it’s a little damp underfoot. Wait a
+minute while I light a candle.” He struck a match and performed this
+feat; how, Ora could not even guess; but she glanced down sideways and
+saw that he was holding the lighted candle up at arm’s length.
+“Come on,” he said. “You mustn’t be frightened.”
+“I’m not a bit frightened, but don’t go too fast.”
+Gregory, who was running down the ladder, moderated his pace, and sent
+up an occasional word of cheer. Suddenly Ora heard a horrid noise below
+like the crash and roar of an express train. “Has the mine fallen in?”
+she gasped.
+“Hope not. That’s the tram with ore and rock for the skip. By and by
+we’ll use the waste rock to fill up the stopes with, but we’re only
+blocking out at present.”
+“How frightfully interesting mining is--in all its details!” Ora’s
+hands were smarting, and every part of her, not excluding her
+imagination, felt as if on the rack. “That noise is over!”
+“Did I hear you say ‘Thank heaven’?”
+“Of course not. How much farther is it? Haven’t we passed the first
+level?”
+“If we had I should be carrying you. Only about twenty feet more.”
+And a few moments later, with the deepest sigh of relief she had ever
+drawn, she was standing in the small station beside the shaft.
+“It’s hard work the first time,” he said sympathetically. “But you’ll
+soon get used to it.”
+“How dark it is!”
+“I’ll put in electricity when my troubles with Amalgamated are over.”
+He lit another candle and handed it to her. “Be careful of your frock.”
+The ore car was rumbling away in the distance. Gregory followed the
+sound down the tunnel and Ora kept close at his heels. “I suppose we’ll
+see something after a while?” she ventured. “I can’t see even you now,
+only your candle.”
+“We’ll soon be out of this,” he said cheerfully. “You see, we’ve had
+to walk under the chamber from which I took that great deposit of
+carbonates, and then some----” He paused a moment, but not before he
+had turned acutely to the left. “This is where I lost the vein. We
+are in the fault now. How would you like to be in an earthquake that
+broke a vein in two and hurled one end----” His voice was lost in the
+rattling roar of the compressed air drills, although there was nothing
+to be seen until they reached another little station and faced a wider
+drift on the right, some twelve feet long. Candles were flaring from
+the miners’ candlesticks, whose long points were thrust into stulls or
+the softer part of the rock, and four men were manipulating two of the
+cumbersome air drills which stood on tripods. Gregory made a sign to
+the shift boss, who shut off a valve, and the din stopped abruptly.
+“Now,” said Gregory. “This is what you have come for.” He moved his
+candle along the brassy glitter of chalcopyrite in the vein, steadying
+her with his arm, for the floor was uneven and littered.
+Ora trembled. She forgot the arm about her; it felt like mere steel
+for that matter; she was in one of the magic caverns of her dreams and
+she thrilled to the magnet of the ores. “It looks like pure gold,” she
+whispered.
+“So it is in a sense, and far more beautiful to look at in the vein.”
+They had been standing near the opening of the drift. He guided her
+down toward the farther end; the miners made way for them and went out
+to the station nothing loath; owing their lives to what has cost many a
+man his life and more, the caprice of a woman.
+“I want to show you how the holes look before we put the sticks of
+powder in,” Gregory began, as he waved his candle once more aloft, this
+time over a less dazzling surface. He stopped abruptly. She felt his
+body stiffen. Then, as he whirled her about, he screamed to the men:
+“Get out! Run!”
+Ora had the sensation of being swept along by a bar of steel burrowing
+into the flesh of her waist. But in another instant she had lost all
+sense of her body. There was a shock as if something had hit the hill
+at its foundations, a dull roar, and then the crash of falling rock
+behind them.
+The men were all ahead. Ora dimly could see them running like rabbits
+up the fault drift. Then she became conscious of the stifling sickening
+smell of powder and a bursting sensation in her head. No one paused for
+a second, nor drew breath until all had turned the corner and were in
+the main level. For a space nothing was heard but the hoarse effort to
+refill tormented lungs. The men leaned against the walls of the tunnel.
+Ora leaned against Gregory. All sense of fear had departed out of
+her. She had had her baptism of fire and doubted if she ever should be
+capable of the sensation of fear again.
+The silence lasted but a moment. Out of the intense darkness flew oaths
+like red-hot rocks from boiling craters.
+“Shut up!” said Gregory sharply. “There’s a lady here. And light up
+if you have any extra candles. I’ve dropped mine. We must find out if
+anybody is missing.”
+“I held on to mine,” said Ora proudly. Gregory lit it, and the shift
+boss counted his men. “All here, sir; but by jink, it was a narrow
+squeak. The--the--the----”
+“Never mind--who’s this?” A man was running toward them from the
+direction of the shaft.
+“It’s me, sir.” Gregory recognised Mann’s voice. “I’ve just got on to
+what they were up to. There wasn’t a blamed thing the matter with the
+compressor. They just meant to catch us off guard--anybody hurt?”
+“All right. How did you find out?”
+“I suspicioned something crooked, so I got one of those damned bohunks
+drunk and bribed him. They’d put in the sticks before they quit,
+pretending the compressor had gone wrong and they couldn’t finish
+drilling. I suppose they sneaked back while I was getting the story,
+and lit the fuses.”
+“You’ll let us get back at ’em, boss?” demanded the men.
+“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, in a voice of deadly irony. “We’ll get back at
+them.”
+He was holding the candle. Ora saw him bend his head forward in the
+attitude so characteristic of him. But he raised it in a moment.
+“Go up, every one of you,” he said, “and down to the saloon. Talk
+about what happened, but assume that it was an accident. Any fighting
+above ground and you’ll be canned. Say that there’s a big cave-in and
+we’re obliged to quit work on this level for the present. See that
+that spreads all over Apex camp. Say that I’ve given you the rest of
+the shift off. Come down as soon as you’ve had your drink and said
+your say. Jerry”--to the shift boss--“you watch the Apex shaft house.
+I don’t figure that they’ll go down under an hour, on account of the
+smoke, but if they do just drop below. I’ll wait for you here. And
+before you come,” he added grimly, “go over to the compressor house
+and tell them to turn the steam on the air line.”
+“Hooray!” The shouting of the men made almost as much noise in the
+tunnel as the recent explosion. “That’s the ticket, boss. Oh, we won’t
+do a thing to them!”
+“Get out of this,” said the shift boss. “Don’t take more than one
+drink; and hold on to your tempers, or there’ll be no fun below.”
+A moment later Gregory and Ora were alone in the tunnel.
+XI
+“How did you guess?” asked Ora.
+“I didn’t guess. I saw a drill hole just beyond where my men were
+working. I also did a little quick deduction. Miners blast just before
+they go off shift. The afternoon change of shift is at three o’clock.
+As I told you I had seen the Apex men come up about one o’clock when
+their compressor stopped. That hole not only told me that they were
+closer than we had thought, but that they were up to devilment. I
+guessed that they had timed to blast just before we were ready to drill
+at that point. Were you very much frightened?”
+“I didn’t like it.” Ora knew that bravery in woman makes no appeal to
+the lordly male. “But I hardly had time to think; and after all you
+left me nothing to do.”
+“Well, you were game and didn’t scream or cry,” he conceded handsomely.
+“Let’s light up.”
+They had walked as far as the station at the foot of the shaft. Gregory
+unlocked the door of a small cupboard, found two candles and inserted
+them in miners’ candlesticks that were stabbed into the walls. They
+flickered in the draft as a skip rattled up from the second level, but
+relieved the oppressive darkness.
+“Why, your hair is down!” exclaimed Gregory.
+Ora put up a hand. “So it is! Well--I am sure I never should know if my
+hair fell down at a good play, and ours was live drama. I’ll braid it
+and put on my veil up above.”
+He watched her for a moment as she sat on a box braiding her long fair
+hair, vaguely recalling the legend of the Lorelei. He noticed that her
+eyes as she peered up at him looked green in that uncertain light. But
+in a moment his thoughts wandered from her. He folded his arms and
+stared downward.
+Ora leaned back against the wall. She saw that he had forgotten her,
+but had made up her mind to accept him as he was; she had no more
+desire to dictate his moods than to read in advance the book of the
+next two months. There was the same pleasurably painful vibration in
+her nerves as on the night when she had piled stake upon stake at Monte
+Carlo. From that scene her thoughts travelled naturally to Valdobia and
+she suddenly laughed aloud.
+“What are you laughing at?” demanded Gregory suspiciously.
+“I was trying to imagine that we were imprisoned in the underground
+dungeon of an Italian palace in the middle ages.”
+“Hard work, I should think. Although if we had a cave-in I guess the
+results would be about the same.”
+“And you? Were you seeing your minerals winking three thousand feet
+below?”
+He laughed then, and sat beside her. “At all events the mystery down
+there is more romantic than your mediæval dungeons--and so will the
+great underground caverns be when the ores have been taken out.”
+“Pity the caverns--stopes!--have to be filled up with débris to prevent
+the mine caving in,” said Ora flippantly. “I went underground in Butte
+last week--to the eighteenth level of the Leonard. Nothing but endless
+streets and cross-alleys, all numbered----”
+“And you didn’t find that interesting?” he asked indignantly. “To be
+a third of a mile below the surface of the earth and find it laid out
+like a city, with streets and rooms, and stations ten times as large as
+this, and lighted with electricity?”
+“Yes, but the knowledge that you have a third of a mile of those
+streets and rooms--seventeen levels of them--on top of you, supported
+only by waste rock in the stopes, and timbers that are always snapping
+in two from the terrific pressure--timbermen working at every
+turn--‘Save YOURSELF’ the first thing you see when you leave that
+cage--Oh, well, I felt there was quite enough romance on top of the
+earth.”
+“I am deeply disappointed in you. You told me once--why, even
+lately----”
+“Oh, I haven’t changed the least little bit. Nothing in life,” and she
+looked at him with laughing eyes, “interests me as much at present
+as these two mines. But I am thankful that we are still within a
+reasonable distance of the surface. I am quite content to screw up
+my eyes and wander in fancy among the primary deposits close to the
+central fires. If I had a mine like yours, full of the beautiful copper
+ores instead of that hideous pyroxenite of mine, I should leave a
+glittering layer in every stope, support the roof with polished stone
+columns, light with hidden electric bulbs, and wander from one to the
+other imagining myself in Aladdin’s palace.”
+“A fine practical miner you would make. It’s lucky that your mine is
+pyroxenite, not quartz. That is if you want to live in Europe.--Do you?”
+“Of course. What have I in this part of the world? A mine cannot
+satisfy a woman for ever. I suppose you wouldn’t care if you never saw
+a woman again!”
+“Oh!” He was looking hard at her.
+“What else were you thinking of just now?” asked Ora, with that
+perverse desire to be superficial which so often possesses American
+women in decisive moments.
+He sighed impatiently. “I’ve got a big job on my hands, one that will
+take me away from here more or less. Did Mark tell you of a land deal I
+put through?”
+“I should think so!”
+“Well, I’ve got to build that railroad. Apex will close down when it
+finds I won’t let its men work underground. Amalgamated’s next move
+will be to bring suit for apex rights, and get out an injunction to
+enjoin me from working on that vein until the case is decided. As soon
+as I have driven them out now, however, I must get to work on the
+railroad--find my engineers--Oh, there are too many details to bother
+you with. But it means that I must spend a good deal of time in Butte
+until the thing is started----”
+“How delighted Ida will be!” interrupted Ora softly. “And that house
+will be so comfortable after your cabin.”
+For a moment he did not speak. Nor did his face betray him; but she
+fancied that his muscles stiffened. He replied suavely: “I should
+have gone on to say that it is more likely I shall have to attend to
+the matter in Helena. That is the centre of the land interest. It is
+doubtful if I could find the sort of men I want in Butte.”
+“Have you any other land schemes on hand?”
+“Not at present.”
+“What does that mean?”
+“Well--when I have taken a couple more millions out of this hill
+I shall begin to buy land, put it under the ditch, build the short
+railroads that may be necessary, and sell to small farmers--in other
+words push along the colonisation of this state. I believe you gave me
+that idea--the night we talked Butte--the first time, I mean.”
+“I thought you had forgotten that night altogether.”
+“Forgotten it!” Ora’s heart stood still at the explicit vibration in
+his well-ordered voice. She leaned back and closed her eyes. He had
+loved her all these months, dreamed of her as she had dreamed of him.
+Her first sensation of wonder and delight was succeeded by a faint
+disappointment.
+She had the instinct of the born huntress, although she was far too
+highly civilised to have recognised it before. She wondered if his
+capitulation meant her own deliverance, too ignorant in the ways of
+love to guess that whether this were a passing or a permanent phase
+depended on the man.
+While Gregory hurried on to tell her of all he should be able to do
+for Montana with the millions at present locked in the vaults of his
+hill, she had a full moment of honesty, and confessed that she had come
+out here to make Gregory Compton love her. And he did! It was a mighty
+personality to conquer; and the victory had been won long since! But
+the disappointment passed in a cynical smile. That he had no intention
+of declaring himself her lover was as patent as his inhuman power of
+self-control. Here were barricades to storm if barricades she wanted?
+What difference? And did she?
+He sprang to his feet and stood at the foot of the shaft, looking up.
+“They’re coming down,” he said.
+Joshua Mann emerged a moment later.
+“Apex bunch being rounded up to go below,” he said. “Our men are on the
+way.”
+“Steam on the air line?”
+“You bet!”
+“Let’s get to work.” He turned to Ora. “Stay here till I come back,” he
+said peremptorily. “I can’t take you up in the skip now.”
+“I am quite comfortable,” said Ora, coolly. “How many men will come
+down?”
+“Five.” And he and Mann disappeared into the tunnel.
+Ora waited until the other men had descended one by one and run into
+the blackness. Then she dislodged one of the candlesticks from the wall
+and ran after them. When she reached the fault drift she thrust the
+long point of the candlestick into a stull before turning the corner.
+Then she crept toward the station, from which she could witness the
+punishment about to be inflicted upon the Apex men, whatever it might
+be.
+There was a glimmer of light in the new drift. Ora saw the men binding
+a piece of hose to the same length of pipe. They attached the hose to
+the air line and held it just inside the ragged hole some twelve feet
+above.
+There was a distant murmur of voices overhead and to the right. The
+solitary candle was extinguished. The murmur of voices in the drift
+which led from Apex shaft along the continuation of the Primo vein grew
+louder. Men were laughing. One man was giving orders. It appeared that
+they were to let themselves down and go systematically to work on the
+Perch vein, which was now driving under the Apex claim.
+Ora heard a sharp whispered word: “Now!” and barely recognised
+Gregory’s voice. A second later and she was deafened by the roar and
+hiss of escaping steam, mingled with shrieks of agony above, and
+fiendish cat-calls and jeers below, all expressed in the spectacular
+profanity of the mining camp. The episode was over in a moment. The
+Apex men tumbled over one another in their anxiety to leave the scene,
+and those manifestly disabled--Ora could hear them gasping horribly as
+the steam was turned off abruptly--were dragged away. She felt her own
+way rapidly along the fault drift, snatched her candlestick from the
+wall as she turned the corner, and scampered back to the shaft station.
+When the men arrived she was sitting demurely on the box. Gregory
+evidently had telephoned from the other station, for the skip came
+rattling down just before his appearance at the head of his laughing,
+cursing column.
+“Did it go off well?” asked Ora.
+“Did it?” cried Mann, tossing his cap in the air.
+“They’re settled for the moment,” said Gregory. “They’ll come back at
+us later with steam on their own air line, and slacked lime; but we’ll
+be ready for them. They stand no show.”
+Two of the men had been left on watch. Gregory lifted Ora into the
+skip. He and Mann stood on the edge. A second more and Ora was
+holding her breath as they were hurtled upward at express speed, the
+metal car banging from side to side of the shaft. In something under
+three-quarters of a minute Gregory helped her to alight in the shaft
+house, while the skip descended for the miners.
+“Well,” he said, smiling, as she lifted her braid to the top of her
+head and wound the veil about it, “have you supped full of sensations
+for one day?”
+“The last was the worst! And I do mean the skip. Now that we are where
+you cannot beat me I will confess that I followed you and saw your neat
+little mediæval revenge from the station----”
+“Hush!” Gregory glanced about apprehensively, and drew her outside.
+“You mustn’t tell anyone else that. You don’t want to be summoned to
+the witness stand, I suppose?”
+Ora gasped. “I never thought of that.”
+“When will women let men do their thinking?” Gregory looked the
+primeval male as he scowled down at her. Nor did he mitigate her alarms
+with the information that underground battles seldom were continued in
+the courts. “Now, I am going to take you to your cottage, and I want
+you to stay there until the trouble is over. The men are bound to get
+drunk and fight. Better go to Butte----”
+“I won’t.”
+“Very well, then, stay in your house.”
+“And be bored to death? Besides. I need exercise. I’ll roam all over
+the place unless you promise to come to supper every night and then
+take me for a walk in the woods.”
+His eyes flickered. “Perhaps your engineer----”
+“He’s a mere child. I hate boys. And I must have exercise.”
+He looked at her with apparent stolidity for another moment, but she
+knew that he was investigating her expressive orbs. They expressed
+nothing that could be construed as flirtation, coquetry, or personal
+interest in himself. He saw himself mirrored there merely as the friend
+of her husband and the husband of her friend. “Very well,” he said
+curtly and swung on his heel. “I suppose I must look out for you. Come
+along.”
+XII
+Gregory had worn a clean suit of overalls into the mine. He was now
+spattered from head to foot, including his face and hands, but he swung
+along beside Ora with an unconsciousness of his disreputable appearance
+that was quite superb. All the miners of the three camps’ off shift
+were gathered about the saloon. As Gregory appeared the greater number
+of these men cheered wildly, but the “dark men,” who stood apart,
+maintained an ominous silence.
+“Aren’t you afraid they’ll take a shot at you some night?” asked Ora.
+“How they must hate you!”
+“You don’t go into any business nowadays and put it over without
+running the risk of being shot by some sort of down-and-outer. What’s
+the sense in worrying? Unless I’m much mistaken we’ll be rid of that
+scum inside of twenty-four hours.”
+And he was right. There was another battle underground, in which more
+of the Apex men were scalded, and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex
+men refused to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on the
+following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly wounded. Both the Perch
+and Primo men tumbled out of bed, hunted down the offenders, and
+chased them into Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with
+bloodthirsty yells. It would be some time before Apex would be able to
+hire miners of any nationality willing to trust themselves between the
+two belligerent camps. But bohunks--more recent importations--would
+return in the future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South
+Europeans can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, whereas
+it costs several thousands to kill an American, Cornishman, or
+Irishman, as he leaves behind him an equally intelligent family or
+friends. It was unlikely, in any case, that high class miners would
+“take a job” in the predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory
+Compton because he was his own manager and worshipped by his miners,
+but because he possessed in overflowing measure the two qualities that
+the American in his heart of hearts respects most, luck and bluff.
+Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory Compton, charging
+not only that the faulted vein apexed in their claim, but that his
+original patent was agricultural and gave him no lateral rights in
+mining; furthermore, that a patented claim could not be repatented.
+This was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations
+before it was decided.
+Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing an invitation
+through the press to eight of the leading geologists of the United
+States and Canada to come to Montana at his expense and make a personal
+inspection of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on
+which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite six
+feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the original vein, and the
+Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at most a fork from his, he would let
+the suit go by default. The geologists promptly accepted, and it was
+agreed that they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June.
+Once more Gregory Compton had scored. Scientific men are normally
+honest, although the great fees offered to geologists frequently infuse
+their judgment with that malleable quality peculiar to the lawyer under
+the subtle influence of his brief. But these men, all of high repute,
+would be too afraid of one another, and of the merciless newspaper men
+that would accompany them, to deliver aught but a just verdict. Gregory
+knew that Amalgamated was profoundly disconcerted, and that in the face
+of public opinion it was improbable that the suit ever would be brought
+into court. But they could devil him meanwhile, and he was enjoined
+from working on the recovered vein until the case should be decided.
+He accepted the injunction without protest and transferred the miners,
+whom he had kept hard at work blocking out until the last minute, down
+to the second level of the mine.
+“They’ll get a jolt from that quarter, too,” said Gregory to Ora, and
+he was not referring to the miners. “They’ll go on fighting me for
+years, no doubt, but I’ll spring some sort of a facer on them every
+time. They may have more money, but I have enough.”
+“You never feel afraid they may beat you in the end?”
+“Beat me?” Gregory’s eyes glittered. “Not unless they bore a hole in
+my skull and introduce a microbe that will devour my brains. I can get
+ahead of them in more ways than one. Long before all the ore on the
+second level is stoped out I shall be in a position to put up my own
+reduction works if they freeze me out of Anaconda or Great Falls. If I
+ever go into politics it will be to fight for a state smelter.”
+Ora looked at him speculatively. He was walking up and down her
+living-room with a swift gliding motion peculiar to him in certain
+moods; his head was a little bent as if his narrow concentrated gaze
+were following a trail.
+“I believe you love the fight as much as any part of it,” she said.
+“I do. And as soon as I’ve taken out money enough I’m going to buy
+a big tract of land, irrigate it, plant it in beets, put up a sugar
+refinery and fight the Havemeyer trust.”
+“Why don’t you form a company, buy your beet land, and put up the
+factory now? You could raise all the money you wanted.”
+“No companies or partners for me,” he said curtly. “What I’ll do I’ll
+do alone. I want no man’s help and no man’s money. And I certainly want
+no other man’s ideas interfering with mine.”
+Ora sighed. He had been away for a week on his railroad and land
+business, and during this, their first meeting since his return, he had
+talked of nothing save his mine and the new possibilities of Circle-G
+Ranch. Investigation of the soil and timber values of the 35,000 acres
+which he had originally hypothecated as a guarantee that the railroad
+should be built, but which perforce had reverted to him when the Land
+Selling Company had failed to keep this part of their contract, would
+be worth, after proper transportation facilities were insured, not
+less than twenty-five dollars an acre. A member of the Land Selling
+Company whom he had taken with him had been convinced of this, and that
+the soil was peculiarly adapted to the raising of apples by intensive
+culture. As soon as the railroad was built there would be no difficulty
+in selling the timber and the rest of the land, and the Company had
+agreed to buy it. His profits would be $875,000, and the railroad would
+cost but $300,000.
+No wonder, thought Ora, that a man with a business brain of that
+calibre had little place in it for woman. True, he had called her up
+once from Helena, evidently seized with a sudden desire to hear her
+voice, but he had been interrupted; and the only tangible result had
+been to keep her in such a fever of expectancy that she barely had
+left the house lest he call her up again and she miss him. He did not,
+and her nerves had become so ragged that she almost had hated him
+and obeyed the impulse to pack her trunks and flee to Europe. He had
+come to see her within an hour of his return, but, beyond his rare
+delightful smile and a hard pressure of the hand, he had manifestly
+been too absorbed to feel any personal appeal beyond her always welcome
+companionship.
+And the next morning he telephoned that he was leaving for Butte. Ida
+had reminded him of his promise to appear in public with her. Mary
+Garden was to sing that night and she had taken a box. He had grumbled
+but finally agreed to go, as he had business in Butte which might
+as well be transacted that afternoon. Ida thanked him politely and
+promised him an interesting party at dinner. Then she called up Ora and
+invited her, but Ora declined on the plea of good taste; the story of
+her impending divorce was common property, and it was hardly decent for
+her to appear in public.
+XIII
+Reaction, after the emotional recognition of the subtle but certain
+change that had been wrought in her unsuspected depths, had filled Ida
+for many hours with a sullen rage against Gregory Compton and herself.
+But in a day or two the buoyancy of youth and the common sense, of
+which she possessed an uncommon store, asserted themselves, and, while
+devoting her time to the small daily distractions of society, her
+determination to win back her husband never waned for a moment. She
+knew that she must play the waiting game, keep a sharp eye out for the
+blessed opportunity and pounce upon it, but make no attempt to “rush
+things.”
+The day after the Apex mine closed down, she rang him up and offered
+her congratulations, told him something of the excitement in Butte,
+then rang off before he began to feel detained. As he passed through
+Butte later, on his way to Helena, he could do no less than call on
+her, and, to his relief and her secret rage, he found several pleasant
+people taking tea in the library. But she showed her pride in him so
+frankly that he could not but be flattered, and talked so intelligently
+of the undoubted sequel of the battle underground that he forgot her
+guests and addressed his conversation to her. She drew him on to
+describe that grim but picturesque episode underground, and he would
+have been less than man had he failed to be sensible of the rise of
+his chest while surrounded by a breathless circle of charming women.
+When they were about to withdraw tactfully and leave him alone with
+his wife, he glanced at his watch, bade them all a hasty good-bye and
+bolted out to catch his train. Ida once more had been able to exhibit
+to her little world an evidence of the pleasant understanding between
+herself and her busy husband, and got what consolation out of this fact
+that she could.
+“I can wait,” she thought grimly. “I can wait! I guess patience is my
+one all-wool-and-a-yard-wide virtue. I’ll wait!”
+She gave several small dinners and a dancing party, devoted to the new
+excitement of “ragging,” in which no one became more proficient than
+herself. She “went” harder than ever, and even joined the more extreme
+younger set (elegantly known as “The Bunch”) one night in a progress
+among the road houses of The Flat, and danced in the ballroom of the
+Five Mile House until dawn. But she had no real taste for this side
+of life; and did penance by visiting the Poor Farm and several other
+charities under the wing of Mrs. Cameron. Her popularity on all sides
+was unchallenged, and not only was she firmly established in the city
+of her heart, but Mrs. Cameron had offered to take a house with her in
+New York for the following winter if she cared to mount still higher.
+She was gratified and grateful, but she was filled with that desperate
+loneliness that only a man can banish.
+On the night of the opera she wore black velvet unrelieved and never
+had looked handsomer. The neck of the apparently inseverable gown was
+cut square, and her beautiful arms were exposed as far to the top as
+fashion permitted; she wore her hair banded closely about her head,
+and, at the base of her throat, a barbaric necklace of dull red and
+blue stones that she had picked up in an antiquity shop in Munich. As
+she sat in her box between Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Collier, one of the
+handsomest and best dressed of the younger women of Butte, Gregory, who
+sat behind and facing the house, saw that during the first entr’acte
+the audience levelled its glasses at her constantly, and that,
+indisputably, she divided the honours of the night with the prima donna.
+He looked at her more than once himself, her classic beauty, or the
+classic effect she made it produce, appealing to his æsthetic sense as
+beauty in any form always did. He wondered a little that it should so
+have lost its once irresistible appeal to his senses, wondered again
+if he could not still have loved her well enough to live with had Ora
+never entered his life. Certainly he was very proud of her, and her
+conversation as well as her personality interested him. He respected
+her profoundly for what she had achieved, giving her full credit for
+the revolution in appearance, manners, and speech, in spite of her
+exceptional opportunities. Then he forgot her as his thoughts wandered
+to Ora, whom he saw sitting alone in her warm shadowy room, in which he
+had come to feel so much at home. As he always went to her when he was
+tired, after a day filled with excitement or hard physical labour, he
+experienced only peace and content in her nearness; but when away, as
+tonight, and with the music of Thaïs singing into his keen responsive
+nerves, he was filled with an inexpressible longing.
+He was roused by a faint exclamation from Ida. She was leaning forward.
+A moment later a man, whom he had never seen before and who looked like
+an Englishman of distinction, silently entered the box. Ida left her
+chair, and gave him both her hands in greeting, then went with him out
+into the passageway where their conversation would not interfere with
+her guests’ enjoyment of the music.
+Gregory felt very much like any other husband at that moment. He
+was conscious of no sting of jealousy, or stab of doubt, but he did
+not like it. He also received a distinct impression that his rights
+of proprietorship were menaced. Moreover, he was so invaded by mere
+curiosity that it was with difficulty he refrained from gratifying it
+at once. But, although he belonged to the type of Western man who would
+shoot the filcher of his woman without an instant’s consideration, he
+was the last man in the world to make a fool of himself.
+Ida tried his patience but a few moments. As soon as the curtain fell
+she re-entered the box and presented the stranger as Lord John Mowbray,
+who had arrived by the evening train and sought the opera house as a
+relief from the hotel. She did not add that he had telephoned at once
+to her house and followed her as quickly as he could change his clothes.
+The husband was the last to be made known to the distinguished
+stranger, and in spite of Mowbray’s ability to look vacuous, and
+Gregory’s to look like a graven image, neither could repress a spark
+under his lowered lids. Mowbray reared his haughty crest at once and
+turned away. Like many young Englishman he blushed easily, and he was
+by no means the first man to feel uncomfortable under the eyes of
+Gregory Compton. He felt the colour rising to his white forehead, and
+was not sorry to present his splendid back and length of limb to that
+searching gaze.
+He sat close to Ida during the last act, and then the party went to her
+house to supper, there being no restaurant worthy the name in Butte.
+Gregory detained Ida at the door after the other had entered.
+“Good night,” he said. “Luning promised to wait for me at his office. I
+shall talk to him until it is time to catch the train for Pony.”
+“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Ida politely, and smiling charmingly. “So
+will the others be. And I wanted you to talk to Lord John. His brother
+has a ranch in Wyoming, and he has come here on some mining business.
+I am so glad to see him again. The men here are--well, they are all
+right, but quite absorbed in one thing only--whatever their profession
+or business happens to be. Lord John knows a little about everything. I
+am sure you would like him. Do ask me to take him out to the mine. He
+is a friend of Ora’s, too. She will ask us if you don’t.”
+“Come whenever you like. If I’m not there my foreman will show you
+round. Good night.” And he was off. Ida, feeling that Mowbray’s arrival
+had been timed by Providence, went in to her guests.
+XIV
+“Who is this Mowbray?” Gregory asked Ora abruptly on the following
+evening. He was in Ora’s living-room, his long legs stretched out to
+the fire.
+Ora, who was working on a small piece of embroidery in a frame,
+superlatively feminine, enveloped in a tea gown imponderable and white,
+looked up in surprise. They had been sitting together for an hour or
+more and their conversation had been wholly of his plans to entertain
+his party of geologists, and the attention this sensational flank
+attack had attracted throughout the country.
+“Is Lord John here?”
+“Yes. Came into the box last night. Handsome chap.”
+“Mowbray is a dear. We saw a great deal of him, and he bought our
+tickets and helped us off generally, when we were so upset over your
+cable.”
+“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?”
+“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.”
+“Hm.”
+There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: “Is he in love
+with Ida?”
+This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; her hands turned
+cold. There was a peculiar alteration of pitch in Gregory’s voice that
+might register jealousy in a hypersensitive ear. And when his face
+looked most like a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced
+that he was masking emotion.
+Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible that by subtle
+manipulation she could reunite this man and her friend? That he loved
+herself she no longer doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would
+ever confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see her
+again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening his interest
+in Ida and playing on his vanity and jealousy, would not reaction, the
+desire for consolation and companionship, carry him straight to the
+wife whose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long ago, aroused
+all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far more beautiful now, and
+quite capable of holding any man. Ora did not for a moment believe
+that Ida loved her husband, or never would she herself have returned
+to Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded pride;
+and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed and was entitled to the
+protection of her husband.
+Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her bosom heaved, her
+breath came short. Almost she experienced the subtle delights of
+renunciation, of sacrifice, of the martyrdom of woman. It would be a
+great rôle to play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. It
+was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring spirit a
+sharp tumble and she laughed aloud.
+Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the cynical amusement in
+her eyes. “What is it?”
+“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course he is more or less
+_épris_; but Ida--she hasn’t it in her to love any man.”
+“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it looked as if he
+had followed her here, and I don’t care for that sort of talk.”
+“He had planned to visit his brother in Wyoming before we met him in
+Genoa. Don’t worry. Ida never will let any man compromise her. She’ll
+parade her son of a duke for the benefit of Butte, but if he shows
+signs of getting out of hand she’ll pack him off.”
+“Yes, Ida is too ambitious to compromise herself.”
+And then another little arrow flew into Ora’s brain. Her hands
+trembled, but she clenched them in her lap. “Gregory,” she said
+steadily, “as you and Ida no longer love each other, why don’t you
+suggest a divorce? She could marry Mowbray and have a big position in
+London--his brother is almost sure not to marry--is a wreck--Ida would
+be quite in her element as a duchess--and you--you would be free--if
+you ever wanted to marry again.”
+When nature has given a man a dark skin and he has permitted it to
+accumulate yearly coats of tan, it is difficult for him to turn white
+under the stress of emotion; but Gregory achieved this phenomenon as
+he realised abruptly what freedom might mean to him. He stood up and
+leaned his back against the high chimneypiece, thrusting his hands
+into his pockets; he had long nervous fingers which sometimes betrayed
+him when his face was set.
+“Ida would never consent to a divorce,” he said heavily. “She’s got all
+sorts of old-fashioned American ideals. The West has the reputation for
+being lawless, and it’s got more Puritans to the square inch than are
+left in New England. Ida’s one of them.”
+“She may have acquired more liberal ideas in Europe.”
+“She told me that she didn’t care if she never saw Europe again. Last
+night I had quite a long talk with her before the others came in for
+dinner. She said she thought it the duty of Western women--particularly
+the women of the newer Northwest--to live in their native state and
+only go away occasionally in order to bring something back to it. She
+intimated that you put that idea into her head when you two first met.”
+“Oh, yes, I believe that to be right, whatever I may do, myself.”
+“What is your idea in going to Europe to live? You are just the sort of
+woman the West needs.” He bit out his words in the effort to be calm
+and casual.
+“I don’t feel that I have any place here.”
+Gregory started on a restless walk up and down the room.
+“Look at here,” he shot out finally, “are you--I haven’t said anything
+about it--but--of course I’ve wanted to--are you determined to leave
+Mark? He’s one of the best fellows in the world. I hate to see him
+thrown down. You--you--I think you should reconsider.”
+“I had done all my considering before I spoke to Mark. I am doing
+him the greatest possible kindness. He needs another sort of woman
+altogether to make him happy. And I? Have I not my right to happiness?
+Do you think I could find it with Mark?”
+“No!” The word exploded. “And you--shall you marry again?”
+“I don’t know.” Ora spoke in a strangled voice. New possibilities were
+shaking her to her foundations. For a moment the perverse imp in the
+purely feminine section of her brain counselled her to run away as
+ever from the serious mood in man, to play with great issues and then
+dodge them. But she brushed the prompting aside with frantic haste and
+summoned her courage. If this was happiness coming to her grasp she
+would seize it.
+Gregory came swiftly back from the farther end of the room and stood
+before her. He had set the muscles of the lower part of his face so
+tightly that he could hardly open his mouth, but his narrow eyes were
+blazing. “If Ida would give me my freedom,” he said, “I should want to
+marry you. Do you understand?”
+Ora stood up. Her white face was so radiant that Gregory fell back.
+“You love me?” he asked.
+“Yes.--Oh, yes----”
+“You would marry me?”
+“Yes!”
+Gregory stared at her, wondering if she really were suffused with white
+fire. Her hands fluttered toward him, and his own face was suddenly
+relaxed, unmasked. Ora’s lips parted and she bent forward. She knew
+then why men and women sacrificed the world when they found their
+predestined mates. Here was the one man who could give her primal joy,
+suffocate her intellect. And the knowledge that she was capable of
+such passion and of the sacrifices it might involve gave her far more
+satisfaction than her former brief mood of renunciation.
+She made another step forward, but Gregory was at the door. “Talk to
+Ida!” he said harshly. “I leave it to you. Go to see her tomorrow. You
+can do anything with her. You must!”
+And he was out of the house. He left the door open and Ora could hear
+his light running footsteps.
+XV
+On the following morning Gregory, who had spent the night in the mine
+and had just come up to the cabin, heard his telephone ring as he was
+about to take his bath and go to bed. His first impulse was to ignore
+the summons, but, his business instinct prevailing, he went into the
+office and unhooked the receiver.
+“Well?” he asked, in a voice both flat and uninviting.
+“It is Ida. How tired your voice sounds. I won’t keep you a minute. I
+have a plan to suggest. Why not let me put up those geologists? Mrs.
+Cameron has asked me to stay with her and will come over and help me
+entertain them at meals. It will not only save you a fearful hotel bill
+but keep them from wandering into the wrong fold.”
+“Good idea!” Gregory’s voice was more animated.
+“I’ll get Professor Becke to take them down into one of the big mines
+here, take them out myself to yours, amuse them between times with the
+prettiest women in town--in short stick to them closer than a brother.”
+“Good! You are the right sort. I’ll meet them at the train--on the
+night of the second, it is--and take them right up to your house. It’s
+putting you to a lot----”
+“Not a bit. It will be immense fun. Good-bye.”
+       *       *       *       *       *
+On that same morning Ora went to Butte. She had telephoned to Ida, and
+Mowbray met her at the train with the limousine.
+“Mrs. Compton had to go to some charity meeting or other,” he said, as
+they shook hands warmly. “I am to drive you about for an hour.”
+This was better fortune than Ora, who possessed little of Ida’s
+patience and talent for the waiting game, had dared to anticipate.
+“How jolly!” Her face lost its traces of a sleepless night as it
+flashed with hope and enthusiasm. “And after that dreadful train! Drive
+to the Gardens,” she said to the chauffeur.
+She pointed out Anaconda Hill as they passed under that famous portal,
+and the shaft houses of other mines, suggesting that he go down with
+the geologists when they made the inevitable descent. “But you will
+find your visit to Mr. Compton’s mine more satisfactory,” she added
+lightly. “You will see more ore in the vein. How do you like him?”
+Mowbray growled something in his thick inarticulate English voice, and
+Ora grasped her opportunity. She turned to him with the uncompromising
+directness her sinuous mind knew so well how to assume.
+“Take me into your confidence,” she said peremptorily. “I can help you.
+At all events keep you from making any mistakes with Ida. She is what
+is called a difficult proposition. Are you in love with her?”
+Mowbray turned a deep brick-red and frowned, but he answered
+intelligibly: “You know jolly well I am.”
+“Then let me tell you that there is only one way you can get her. Ida
+is moral to the marrow of her bones. You might make her love you, for
+she and her husband are practically separated, but you can get her only
+by persuading her to divorce Mr. Compton.”
+“I’ve thought of that. Of course I’d rather marry her. I’m a decent
+sort myself--hate skulking--and lying--she’s the last woman I’d want to
+compromise. But I’m so beastly poor. I’ve only twelve hundred pounds a
+year.”
+“And she has forty thousand pounds now of her own. You need not
+hesitate to spend the capital, for Mr. Compton is most generous, and is
+sure to give her much more. He is bound to be a multimillionaire--it is
+only a question of a few years.”
+“Does he want his own freedom?”
+“I am not in his confidence. But as they no longer care for each other
+and have agreed to live apart--merely showing themselves together in
+public occasionally to avoid gossip--it is natural to suppose that he
+would be indifferent, at least. He cannot be more than thirty, and will
+be sure to want his freedom sooner or later.”
+“This is splendid of you!” cried the Englishman gratefully. “She’s not
+happy. I know that, and now I shall know just what to do.”
+“Sympathise with her. Make yourself necessary--make her feel the
+neglected wife, and what a devoted husband would mean. You have the
+game in your own hands, and I will help you.”
+XVI
+Ora discerned certain changes in Ida as the three reunited friends,
+with so many pleasant memories in common, talked gaily at luncheon.
+It was not only that she was a trifle thinner but there were shadows
+in her eyes that gave them troubled depths. The curves of her mouth
+also were less assured, and her strong, rather large, but beautiful
+hands had a restless movement. Ora, whose imagination was always ready
+to spring from the leash and visualise a desired conclusion, pictured
+Ida, if not already in love with this good-looking and delightful
+Englishman, as circling close; neglected and mortified, she longed for
+the opportunity to live her life with him; in short was champing the
+bit.
+Ora led the conversation--no great adroitness was necessary--to the
+many divorces pending in Butte at the moment. Ida sniffed. Ora asserted
+gaily that they were merely a casual result of an era of universal
+progress and individualism; one of the commonplaces of modern life
+that hardly called for comment. “You are so up to date in everything
+else, my dear,” she concluded, “that I wonder you cling to such old
+middle-class prejudices.”
+“I guess there are a few conservatives and brakes left in this
+country,” said Ida, drily. “I may look back with horror at the time
+when I chewed gum and walked out of a restaurant with a toothpick in my
+mouth, but Ma hammered most of my good old-fashioned prejudices into
+my back with the broom-handle, and I’m no more likely to forget her
+opinion of divorce--the poor get it sometimes as well as the rich--than
+the bastings I got if I played hookey from school, or sneaked out after
+dark alone with a beau.”
+“My mother was exactly the same,” said Ora, with that charming
+spontaneity which so often robbed her words of the subtle insult of
+condescension, or the more cryptic of irony. “If I hadn’t happened to
+be a book-worm and had indulged in clandestine love affairs I should
+have been shut up on bread and water. And she had all a Southern
+woman’s horror of divorce. But, dear Ida! That was in the dark ages.
+We live in the most enlightened and individualistic era of the world’s
+history. I have kept my eyes and ears open ever since. Nor do I believe
+for a moment that we are getting any worse--we merely have achieved a
+more well-bred indifference toward other people’s affairs. One can hear
+a scandal a minute in large towns and small, if one has nothing better
+to do than listen; but whereas in our mothers’ time a woman was dropped
+if she was ‘talked about,’ today we don’t turn a hair at anything short
+of a quite superlative divorce court scandal--not even about girls;
+always provided that they continue to dress well, and keep on being
+charming and spending money.”
+“That is about the most cynical thing I ever heard you say.”
+“The truth always sounds cynical. You laugh at me for dreaming and
+being an idealist, but I never have shut my mind to facts as you do.”
+“I don’t even blink the old facts. I don’t like them, that’s all. I
+don’t say, of course, that if I were married to a brute who came home
+drunk and beat me--but this swapping husbands like horses--well, I’m
+content to be a brake as long as there’s any wheel to freeze to. You
+know I’m not hitting at you,” she added hastily. “I’d give you the moon
+if you wanted it; but I put you in a class by yourself, that’s all.”
+“Oh,” cried Ora, laughing. “Let us change the subject before you prove
+that your logic turns feminine at the crucial test. Heavens! How
+hideous Butte is. We drove----”
+“Hideous? Butte?” demanded Ida indignantly.
+“Oh, you see it through the glamour of a triumphal progress. Wait until
+the novelty has worn off. How do you find it?” she asked Mowbray, who
+had relished his excellent luncheon and admired his ally’s tactics.
+“Rippin’ air. Nearly took a header out of the window this mornin’
+thinkin’ I had wings. But as for looks--those mountains in the
+distance are not half-bad, but the foreground is--er--a little
+ragged--and--new--you know.” He smiled into Ida’s warning eyes.
+“Really, dear lady, I can understand that you were keen on gettin’
+home again, because home is home, don’t you know. But beauty--tell me
+just where you do find it.”
+Ida tossed her head. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and mine
+beholds it. That is enough for me. Now, run along to the Club. I
+haven’t seen Ora for ages. You may come back for tea.”
+She led the way up to her bedroom and they made themselves comfortable
+and lit their cigarettes.
+“Odd as it would seem,” said Ida, “to those east and west of us who
+have an idea that Butte has been on one prolonged spree since she
+was really a camp, I have to enjoy my occasional cigarette on the
+sly. A few of the younger women smoke, when they have locked the
+doors and pulled the blinds down--and of course The Bunch does; but
+the majority--and those that never bat an eyelash at cocktails and
+champagne--think it indecent for a woman to smoke. Funny world.”
+“Butte is a provincial hole. As there are no strangers present you
+needn’t bother to defend it. I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Why don’t
+you divorce Mr. Compton and marry Mowbray?”
+“Aw!” Ida dropped her cigarette and burned a hole in her skirt. “Are
+you raving crazy?”
+“I thought I was advancing a peculiarly level-headed suggestion----”
+“None of it in mine!”
+“But, my dear Ida, you will tire inevitably of this old camp. The
+glamour of all this return in a gilded chariot drawn by the cheering
+populace will wear off in about six months. So will your own novelty
+for them. It is all indescribably cheap, anyhow. If you send Mowbray
+away now, he will try to forget you, and forgetting is man’s peculiar
+accomplishment. You will have missed a great opportunity. You and Mr.
+Compton are manifestly indifferent to each other. Seize your chance,
+dear--not only for happiness, but for a splendid social position,
+before----”
+Ora paused. Ida was glaring ahead of her with her heavy black brows
+pushed low over her flaming eyes. Her lips were drawn back over her
+sharp little teeth. Her nostrils were distended. She looked like some
+magnificent beast of the jungle stalking her prey.
+“By God!” she whispered, her whole body heaving, “I’ll have him back. I
+was a fool before I left, and maybe I shouldn’t have left him at all.
+It’s never safe to leave a man. But when I do get him back he’ll be
+glad of all I’ve learned. He’s like a lunatic with a fixed idea just
+now--but wait.”
+Ora felt cold and numb. She tried to rise, and wondered if the shock
+had paralysed her. She managed to articulate: “You love him then?”
+But not even to Ora could Ida make any such admission; she who always
+had flouted both sentiment and passion! She recovered herself and
+tossed her head.
+“Love! Who cares about love? Do you think I’m the sort of woman a man
+can throw down for a mine? I wouldn’t stand it even it were another
+woman--but ore! It makes me sick. I won’t be thrown down. And I’ll get
+him back!”
+Ora too had recovered herself. She lit another cigarette. “I’m so glad
+you don’t care, dear. No man is worth agonising over, as you so often
+have said yourself. Forgive the doubt. I should have remembered that
+you were far too clever and worldly-wise for that sort of thing. That
+is the main reason that I am willing to marry Valdobia: I can be fond
+of him, like him always, be grateful for his companionship, but he
+can’t tear my heart out.”
+“I thought you told me when you came back that you were mad about him?”
+“Oh, I fancy I was strung up that day. When I am excited I always
+exaggerate. But do think over what I have said about Mowbray. And it
+would be heavenly to have you in Europe.”
+“My mind’s made up. I guess I’m American to my core and marrow. Titles
+will never seem natural to me, and I guess we’ll both live to see them
+so tangled up with democracy that those that are left will look like
+old labels on new cans. No has-beens in mine. Oh, chuck it! What’s this
+I hear about little Whalen--that he’s resigned from the High and been
+out in the mountains prospecting since the beginning of Spring? I’ve
+only seen him once since I came back and then he looked like a viper
+that had been stepped on.”
+“I met him the other day when I was out walking. He bought a claim of
+one of the prospectors that swarmed out there as soon as they heard
+of the Primo and the Perch strikes. He wore overalls and a beard.
+I scarcely knew him. He talked rather wildly about the hill he has
+located on being another Perch of the Devil.”
+“I guess Gregory is responsible for that and a good many other wild
+dreams. I hear that a lot of young men are coming out from the East
+this Summer to prospect in those hills. Well, they’ll succeed or fail
+according to their luck mostly. Let’s go out. You’ve got two hours
+before your train goes--but if you’ve got a list a yard long----”
+And the two sallied forth in perfect peace to shop.
+XVII
+Ora had more than one cause for uneasiness when she returned to her
+little home in the pine woods, but paramount was the fear that she
+should not see Gregory Compton again unless by accident. She rose
+early after another almost sleepless night and spent a distracted day
+wandering over the hills, returning at intervals to inquire if her
+telephone bell had rung. Once more she felt a disposition to run away,
+anathematising the slavery of love. Only the hope that Mowbray would
+wear down Ida’s resistance kept her from yielding to the impatient,
+imaginative, too highly organised woman’s impulse to flee when love
+seems hopeless and a nervous explosion imminent. She still refused to
+feel traitorous to Ida, but she did wonder once or twice if she ever
+should dare to face her as Mrs. Gregory Compton. Ida was the reverse of
+a fool. She might be blind now, for obvious reasons--but Ora shrugged
+her shoulders at the vision of Ida’s horror and wrath. What did she
+care for Ida or any other woman if she got her man?
+She made one of her sudden dashes into the house as the telephone bell
+was ringing. For the moment she thought she was about to faint; then,
+both appalled and angry at the lawless behaviour of her nerves, she
+stamped her foot, shook herself, marched over to the telephone, took
+down the receiver, and asked in a bored voice: “Well?”
+“I shall come to supper tonight if you will have me?” Gregory’s tones
+were those he employed when “canning” a miner.
+“Delighted.” Ora’s nerves fell into place like good little soldiers.
+“Will you be here at seven?”
+“About. I prefer to have you tell me here what she had to say.”
+“Constitutionally opposed at present, but that was to be expected.
+Seeds always sprout if well planted and judiciously watered. Our friend
+from England will do his part.”
+“Good. We’ll say no more about it. But I shall go to see you as usual.”
+“Why not? We are not fools or children. Any new developments at the
+mine?”
+“Shaft has reached third level. Vein seems to be about the same
+richness as on the second. Mann is here. Good-bye.”
+As Ora, her body no longer braced and rigid, but so filled with the
+languor of happiness that she wanted to throw herself down on the divan
+and sleep, crossed the room, she became aware that someone was standing
+in the outer doorway. His hat was in his hand, and as she focussed her
+absent gaze she managed to recognise Professor Whalen. Her impulse
+was to turn her back and run into her bedroom; but Ora was always a
+great lady. She could be extremely rude to a member of her own class,
+but she had never permitted herself to wound the morbid sensitiveness
+of those to whom fortune had been less kind. So, secretly wondering
+if the little man really stood there, or if anything so insignificant
+mattered, she went forward smiling and offered him her hand.
+“So good of you to come and have a cup of tea with me.” She rang a
+bell and ordered tea of her Chinaman. “But why did you dress up? I am
+accustomed to overalls and flannel shirts, and quite like the idea of
+living in a mining camp.”
+Whalen sat on the edge of his chair and stared into the fire, twirling
+his hat in his hands. “I guess I’ve got to be a gentleman again,” he
+said with a short laugh. “There’s nothing else left for me to be.”
+“Oh! I hope----”
+“My find--and I paid a thousand dollars for the claim--was nothing but
+a gash vein. Nothing in that but low grade carbonates.”
+“But are you so sure? Often veins appears to pinch out a hundred feet
+or more above a really rich lode.”
+“I’ve poured into that hole all my savings; all I had saved from my
+salary during four years, and every cent of my reward in the field of
+letters. I even--and against my secret resolutions--consumed a legacy
+left me by an uncle.”
+“Perhaps if you would ask Mr. Compton to look at your claim--he is a
+sort of ore wizard----”
+“I’ll ask no favours of Gregory Compton!” Whalen burst out, violently.
+“Were it not for him I never would have been enticed into this foolish
+venture. I cannot realise it--I, who was brought up in the most
+conservative corner of this conservative country--I, a pedagogue, a
+man of letters, that I should have so far descended as to become a
+prospector--live in a hut, cook my own bacon, dig with a pick----” He
+paused choking.
+“Doubtless you remembered that some of the greatest millionaires in the
+country began that way. Or possibly the Northwest kindled your sense
+of adventure--that is inherent in every real man. But why blame Mr.
+Compton?”
+Whalen had recovered his breath. He spat out his words. “Why should a
+man like that have all the luck? And such colossal luck! Who is he?
+What is he? In what way does he compare with me--a man of no family, of
+no culture, of no intellect----”
+“Mr. Compton has given evidence that he has one of the best brains this
+country has produced.” Ora spoke evenly but with a glint in her eye.
+“Oh, yes, _brains_! I make a fine distinction between mere brains and
+intellect. He has the sort of mental composition those men always
+seem to have in order that they may make use of their luck and roll
+up millions. But intellect? Not a cell. He has never read anything. I
+journeyed with him from Pony to Butte not long since and endeavoured
+to engage him in conversation. I might as well have tried to talk to a
+mummy--and an ill-mannered one at that. The moment I left the subject
+of mines he merely looked out of the window.”
+Ora laughed merrily, and poured out the tea the Chinaman had brought
+in. “Perhaps it is just that lack of overdevelopment that we call
+intellect which permits these men to concentrate upon their genius for
+making money.”
+“But that has nothing to do with their luck in the beginning. Luck!
+Blind luck! Fool’s luck! And why not to me? Why to this Gregory
+Compton? I never believed in luck before, but since this rush, and
+my own personal experience----” He swallowed a mouthful of tea
+too hastily, scalded himself, and, while he was gasping, Ora said
+soothingly:
+“You cannot help believing in luck if you study the early history of
+any mining state. There are hundreds of stories of prospectors--you
+have told of many yourself; the majority had little or no education,
+less science. Out of a hundred evenly equipped with grit, common sense,
+some practical knowledge of ores, perhaps two would find a rich pocket
+or placer. Four or five possibly made a strike that would insure them
+a competence if they neither gambled nor drank. The rest nothing--not
+after forty years of prospecting in these mountains. I fancy there is
+something in that old phrase about the lucky star; in astronomical
+parlance the position of the planets at the moment of one’s birth.”
+“But why not I?” wailed the professor. “Why--why this--well, he is a
+friend of yours--Gregory Compton?”
+“_Why not?_”
+“I am infinitely his superior in every way!” cried Whalen in perfect
+good faith. “It is I who should have discovered those millions and
+taken them to Beacon Street, not this obscure young Westerner, son of
+an illiterate old ranchman----”
+“But you didn’t,” said Ora, patiently. “Besides, the fates are not
+unjust. They made you a member of the New England aristocracy, and gave
+you intellect. Do not be unreasonable and demand the mere prospector’s
+luck as well.”
+Whalen looked at her suspiciously, but her eyes were teasing, not
+satiric. He had admired her always more than any woman he had met in
+the West, and had come to her blindly to be consoled. Suddenly he saw
+an indefinable change steal over her face, although her mouth remained
+curled with the stereotyped smile she kept for the Whalens. It was as
+if something deep in her brilliant eyes came to life, and her slight
+bust rose under the stiff shirtwaist. Whalen’s ears were not acute and
+he did not hear the light footstep that preceded a peremptory knock.
+Ora crossed the room swiftly and opened the door. Whalen was no fool,
+and he had written fiction for four years. He had guessed at once that
+his beautiful hostess loved the man who demanded admittance, and when
+he heard Gregory Compton’s voice he almost whistled. But he merely
+arose and frowned.
+“Knocked off and thought I would run in early,” Gregory was beginning,
+when he saw Whalen. “How are you?” he asked with more cordiality than
+he usually wasted upon the little man. His spirits always flew to his
+head when he met Ora, stolid as he might look. “How’s your mine getting
+on?” he added, as he selected the longest of the chairs before the
+fire. “Heard it had petered out.”
+“It has!”
+“I’ll go over and have a look at it tomorrow if you like. I fancy
+you’re located too close to one of the faults. The trouble with you
+amateur prospectors--or buyers of prospectors’ claims--is that you
+don’t take a geologist out with you. You lose your heads over an assay
+report on exceptional specimens. But I’d like to see for myself.”
+“It’s no use,” said Whalen gloomily. “I have used up all my money in
+that----” He had learned to swear in mining camp society, but he pulled
+himself up hastily, “that hole.”
+“If I think there is anything there I’ll grub-stake you. Nobody would
+buy your claim, but somebody might jump it if you let it lapse, and I
+want to know who my neighbours are. Have you patented it?”
+“Not yet.”
+“Spent five hundred dollars on it?”
+“_Have_ I!”
+“Well, I’ll look at it tomorrow, and if I think it’s good for anything
+I’ll help you out. I am going to Helena in a day or two. Come along and
+apply for your patent.”
+“You are very kind.” Whalen felt repentant, and more grateful than he
+had ever condescended to feel before. “I’ll expect you tomorrow.” He
+inferred that he could best show his gratitude by taking himself off,
+and rose. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Blake. This hour has been refreshing
+and inspiring after my long absence from civilisation.”
+“You must come soon again,” said Ora sweetly, as she marshalled him
+out. “The best of luck.”
+She went to her bedroom for a few moments, and when she returned wore
+a soft tea gown made of several shades of woodland greens. She seated
+herself in her favourite chair, straight, with a high carved back, and
+took up her neglected embroidery. “Dinner will not be ready for half an
+hour,” she said. “How long that little man did stay. I am glad you made
+a friend of him, for I have always imagined that he could be venomous,
+and before you came in he was by way of hating you. Now tell me the
+surprise you have for the geologists and newspaper men on the second
+level.”
+And for the next three hours they talked of ores.
+XVIII
+“Give me your hand, Gregory. I am no coward, but this is the first time
+I have ever been underground. My father would never permit it, nor my
+mother after him.”
+Gregory extended his long arm behind him and Ida’s warm firm fingers
+clung to his hand. They had just left the skip at the second level of
+his mine. The geologists and the newspaper men, together with herself,
+Lord John, Gregory, and Mann, had entered the mine by way of the Primo
+shaft, inspected the insignificant vein of copper which had merely
+been blocked out, awaiting the possible erection of a concentrating
+plant--for it was not worth the expense of freight to Anaconda--thence
+down the ladder from the hole blasted by Apex, and into the drift
+where the magnificent vein of Perch of the Devil also merely had been
+blocked out; but for a more subtle reason. The case in Gregory’s favour
+was so flagrant that the great men had laughed, although gracefully
+submitting to interviews on the spot and expressing themselves with
+as few technicalities as possible. That the Primo copper upon which
+Apex had also sunk was a mere attenuated fork of the great vein which
+indisputably had faulted from the original vein in Gregory Compton’s
+property the reporters could see for themselves. Under the Apex law
+Gregory was within his lateral rights in sinking under the adjoining
+claim and thence under the Primo mine; and as far beyond as the vein
+persisted.
+Against a man less determined and resourceful than Gregory Compton
+a wealthy corporation could obtain any verdict it demanded; but to
+persist in a suit for Apex rights after this public exposition would
+make any trust the laughing-stock of a continent. Even to persist
+in the claim that he was mining under an agricultural patent, and
+therefore outside his rights, would be mere petty persecution; and
+inevitably both suits would steal noiselessly to limbo. Amalgamated
+knew when it was beaten and would take its medicine with a grimace and
+watch for its next opportunity.
+Ida, although she disliked the sensation of being underground, the
+chill of the tunnels and the drip of candle-grease on her smart linen
+skirt, had been deeply impressed by the scene in the excavation on the
+Perch vein: the men with their keen upturned faces, their peering eyes
+so close to the moving candles, the little yellow flames travelling
+along the beautiful yellow metal, the eager nervous hands of the
+newspaper men, the intense blackness beyond the radius of the candles.
+But her eyes returned constantly to her husband’s face. His eyes
+gleamed with copper fires. His profile against the dark background of
+the cavern looked as if carved in the rock by some prehistoric race.
+The blood scorched her face and her heart leapt with pride as she heard
+these distinguished men defer to him, express their admiration without
+reserve. A year ago he had been as little known as when she married
+him. Today his extraordinary abilities were recognised by the entire
+country, and tomorrow he would be one of its colossi.
+She was the only woman that had gone down. Mrs. Cameron and Mrs.
+Collier had preferred to remain comfortably with Ora in the bungalow,
+or to help her spread the tables under the pines, where luncheon was to
+be served. Therefore was she privileged to keep close to the host, and
+when they descended into the blackness of the second level she embraced
+further her feminine prerogatives. Mann had gone down first, the guests
+had followed, and Gregory, after a vain protest, had taken her down in
+the skip when it returned for himself.
+The rest of the party had pushed forward, for they had been promised a
+surprise. Ida would have lingered, but Gregory pulled her on. He wanted
+to hear the comments. The racket of the drills had stopped. Ida saw the
+last of the guests disappear up a short ladder.
+“Am I to go up into a stope?” she asked.
+“If you want to see what we’ve come for.” He ran up the ladder, and she
+followed, insinuated herself into the hole and stood upright in the
+large excavation on the vein.
+“Is it gold?” she gasped.
+“No, but it’s a streak--a shoot--of chalcopyrite ten feet wide and of
+the highest value. And it may go down eight or nine hundred feet before
+it loses its richness and degenerates into a lower grade of ore. But
+there may be millions of tons of that. This is one of the few great
+shoots of chalcopyrite known.”
+“Gregory!” said Ida ecstatically, “do you remember I always had such
+faith in you that I urged you so often to prospect on the ranch that
+you got quite cross?”
+“Yes, I remember.”
+“Never say I doubted you. I may be enchanted at all this success and
+recognition of your abilities, but I have never had the least sensation
+of surprise.”
+Gregory smiled down into the eager beautiful face so close to his
+shoulder. She had manipulated him down the ladder into the tunnel and
+for the moment they were alone. “I hope you are half as proud of me as
+I am of you,” he said gallantly, although he was a trifle uneasy; not
+because she looked as if she might kiss him there in the semi-dark, but
+because he felt an impulse to kiss her. For the moment he regretted the
+wild romance upon which he was embarked, the torments of its present,
+the tragic possibilities of its future. Ida now would make an ideal
+wife, demanding far less of his jealously guarded inner self, to say
+nothing of his time, than Ora, who had that most terrible of all gifts,
+a passionate soul. But this disloyalty was brief, and he frowned and
+disengaged his hand, although he was far from suspecting that Ida had
+yielded to the temptation to pay him deliberate court.
+“I shall be able to give you a string of pearls before long,” he said
+lightly, “or a million or two to play with. I want to hear what these
+men have to say. Suppose you go back with Lord John, and tell them that
+we are coming up soon for lunch. Ring the bell in the station twice for
+the skip and three times for hoist.”
+Ida shrank back against the wall as if she had been struck, but when
+Lord John, who had made several futile attempts to separate her from
+her husband, came eagerly forward, she left Gregory to the chorus of
+enthusiasm and congratulation, and obeyed his directions.
+XIX
+Ida was in such high spirits during the luncheon that she managed to be
+brilliant and amusing within the limits of her expurgated vocabulary.
+Only Ora, who knew her so well, saw the sombre fire in the depths of
+her eyes, the sudden twist of her mouth at the corners, noted that
+her cheeks were crimson instead of their usual delicate coral, the
+occasional clenching of her hands. But she had little time to speculate
+upon the cause, for the large party were her guests, and, like any
+other Rocky Mountain hostess in the liquid month of June, she feared
+the sudden drenching of her tables.
+But the day remained fine, and the geologists, who ever since their
+arrival in Butte had evinced a remarkable indifference to geology as a
+topic for conversation, were as lively as the newspaper men, and deeply
+appreciative of the good looks and animated conversation of the four
+women who ate almost nothing in their efforts at mental subdivision.
+Ora had invited also her engineer and Professor Whalen, placing the
+latter as far from Ida as possible; but she saw that he was covertly
+watching the woman he must hate. Ida had thrown him a careless nod when
+they met by the tables in the grove; and he had returned it with a bow
+of surpassing dignity.
+Gregory, now that the men of science and of the press had served his
+purpose, was eager to be rid of them, and excused himself when the
+luncheon was half over, on the plea that he was his own manager and
+needed at the mine. He disappeared into the Primo shaft house, as he
+often took that short cut to his own shaft, and Mowbray, who had been
+silent, for Gregory affected his buoyant spirits unaccountably, moved
+his chair up beside Ida and endeavoured to divert her mind from the
+general to the specific. But she snubbed him and he relapsed into
+gloom. On the train, however, when she saw that Whalen, who was on his
+way to Helena to apply for his patent, was watching her, she flirted
+pointedly with the handsome Englishman.
+The guests were to leave Butte on the seven o’clock train, which,
+fortunately for the strain that all were beginning to feel, was only
+half an hour late. When it had pulled out and Ida had waved her last
+farewell, she walked in silence to her car, and intimated with a
+curt nod that Mowbray might take the seat beside her. “But tell Ben
+where you want to go,” she said, “for I can’t ask you to dine with me
+tonight.”
+Mowbray told the chauffeur to drop him at the Club and then asked his
+lady, whose animation had dropped to zero, if anything had happened to
+annoy her, or if she were merely worn out.
+“Don’t ask me any questions,” said Ida sharply. “I’m sorry to seem
+inhospitable but I’ve got something to think out. You can go to the
+dance at the Country Club.”
+“I shall more likely go to my rooms and write letters. Don’t worry
+about me. Shall we have a ride tomorrow morning?”
+“I don’t know.”
+Mowbray was always philosophical about women, having been brought
+up with many sisters. “You are tired out,” he said without too much
+sympathy. “Just call me up if you feel like doing anything in the
+morning.”
+“All right. Good night.”
+She left him at the Silver Bow Club. Her own house was only a few
+blocks distant. She told the maid who admitted her that she wanted no
+dinner and should go to bed at once and without assistance. When she
+reached the seclusion of her bedroom she locked the door, flung her hat
+on the floor and stamped on it, broke several valuable objects, and
+then paced up and down, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming.
+There was but one person on earth that she hated more than she hated
+Gregory Compton and that was herself. She had meant to play a waiting
+game of many interviews, in which her fine calculation had mapped out
+the insidious approach, the adroit pushing aside of barrier after
+barrier, until Gregory returned almost inadvertently to his allegiance.
+She had no desire for romantic scenes; they would have embarrassed
+herself, and with her instinctive knowledge of man, she knew that
+Gregory would shrink back from any situation that might involve
+explanations. Nor did she wish to let a man so absorbed as Gregory feel
+that he was loved too much, lest he chafe at the thought of feminine
+exactions, and his mind continue to dwell upon the delights of freedom.
+He might be capable of moments when the woman alone existed, but there
+would be long intervals when he would hate a woman’s clinging arms if
+they made him ten minutes late for his work, particularly if he was
+headed for his beloved mine. Ida, shrewd, self-controlled, watchful,
+knew herself, now that her powers were developed, to be the natural
+mate for such a man. He would drive a temperamental woman mad.
+And she had seemed to make a steady progress. The geologists had
+remained for three days in Butte before visiting Perch of the Devil.
+On the second evening they had been entertained by the professors of
+the School of Mines, but on the other two evenings she had given them
+elaborate dinners, and Gregory had attended each. She had seen that he
+was increasingly proud of her, and grateful. Upon both occasions they
+not only had had a little talk apart but he had drifted back to her
+more than once.
+And today she had spoiled everything! In the darkness of that mine she
+had weakened and made open love to him. She had practically offered
+herself--she ground her teeth as she thought of her clinging fingers,
+her appealing eyes, her cheek almost brushing his--and he had rejected
+her--with consideration, but finality!
+If he had knocked her down she would have cherished hope. But in this
+hour she had none. His indifference was colossal. The busiest men in
+America had their women; she no longer could comfort herself with the
+delusion that the mine was a controlling and exclusive passion; she
+merely had ceased completely to attract him--and she remembered how
+thorough he was; she no more could relight those old fires than she
+could blow life into the dead ashes of Big Butte. He would turn to
+another woman one of these days; it was not within human possibility
+that he would go through life without love; but not to her! not to
+her! She would do to entertain his friends, to flaunt his wealth
+and advertise his success; in time no doubt he would treat her as a
+confidential friend; but sexually she was an old story. It was apparent
+that the mere thought bored him; it was only when Gregory was bored
+that he was really polite.
+If she could but have accepted this, resigned all hope, instead of
+subjecting herself to humiliation; she, who had never failed to send
+the blood to a man’s head with a glance! She didn’t want to hate him.
+She didn’t want to hate herself. Why could she not have been content to
+accept the inevitable with philosophy and grace?
+The answer that, owing to some mysterious law of her being, she loved
+him, made her want to smash everything else in the room; but she would
+have some difficulty concealing the present wreckage from her servants,
+so she bit her handkerchief to shreds instead.
+When the furies had tired her body she fell into a chair and although
+her brain was still hot with the blood sent there by excitement and
+lack of food, she admitted frankly that the peculiar nature of her
+agitation was due to wounded pride and intense mortification; had
+she arrived at a point where she no longer could hope, but without
+self-betrayal, she might have wept bitter tears, but there still would
+have been a secret sweetness in loving him. Now, she growled out her
+hatred. She longed to do something to hurt him. If she only were
+another sort of woman! She would go to Mowbray’s rooms, go to Helena
+with him for a week. And simultaneously she yearned to be consoled, not
+only in her heart but in her wounded pride.
+Should she ask her husband for a divorce; revenge herself by becoming
+an English duchess? Ora, in the moment or two they had found together
+at the station, had told her that Mowbray’s older brother was at Davos,
+unmistakably dying of tuberculosis, and that his engagement, insisted
+upon by his father, had been broken. Valdobia had given her this news
+in his last letter, adding the hope that his friend would bring Ida
+back with him that they might all be together once more.
+Was this the solution of her problem? A marriage that would demonstrate
+to Gregory Compton that her moment of seeming weakness was mere
+coquetry; a marriage that would raise her an immeasurable social
+distance above him; a permanent dissociation from everything that could
+remind her of him and this terrible obsession that had disorganised
+her being, reduced her to the grovelling level of the women whose
+dependence on the favour of man she had always despised?
+When she reflected that her revenge would fall flat, Gregory’s not
+being the order of mind to appreciate the social pre-eminence of a
+titled race, she ground her teeth, again. There was nothing left but
+to consider herself. Should she choose the part that not only would
+exalt her station and fill her life with the multifarious interests of
+a British peeress, but banish this man in time from her memory; or stay
+on and alternate torments with moments of indescribable sweetness when
+he smiled upon her? And might she not yet manipulate him into her net
+if she continued to play the waiting game? Or would she go wholly to
+pieces the first time they were alone together?
+Her pride strangled at this possibility and brought her to her feet.
+The blood was still boiling in her head, she knew what nerves were for
+the first time in her life. She made up her mind to go out and walk. In
+this part of the town she was not likely to meet anyone.
+She found another hat, put on a warm coat, and let herself out of the
+house. It was ten o’clock. All the West Side, no doubt, was at the
+Country Club.
+For a time she walked rapidly and aimlessly, trying to focus her mind
+on other things. But when a woman is in love and the path is stony, she
+is obsessed much as people are that suffer from shock and reiterate
+ceaselessly the circumstances of its cause. Her brain seethed with
+hate, longed for revenge. Nothing would have gratified her more than to
+take the secret revenge of infidelity. Many a woman has taken a lover
+for the satisfaction of laughing to herself at her husband’s dishonour;
+to dishonour being the most satisfactory of all vengeance, whether open
+or concealed.
+She realised abruptly that her thoughts had led her unconsciously to
+the door of John Mowbray’s lodgings. The flat had been lent him by a
+banker to whom he had brought a letter from his brother, and who had
+gone East immediately after his arrival; the banker’s wife lived in
+Southern California. It occupied the second story of a house in West
+Broadway and had its own entrance on a side street. Mowbray had given a
+tea there a day or two before, and Ida had presided.
+She did not delude herself for a moment that she could take her
+full revenge upon the unconscious Gregory, but at least she could do
+something quite shocking, something that would infuriate a husband.
+Ida was not afraid of any man, least of all one that wished to make a
+duchess of her, but it would be an additional satisfaction to torment
+him, and an adventure with a spice of danger in it no doubt would
+restore her equilibrium. If Mowbray made violent love to her she felt,
+by some obscure process of feminine logic, that she would forgive
+Gregory Compton.
+She glanced hastily up and down the street, then more sharply,
+wondering if she had dreamed that once or twice she had looked over her
+shoulder with the sense of being followed. It was a bright moonlight
+night. No one was in sight. She rang the bell of Mowbray’s flat. The
+door was opened from above. At the head of the stairs stood the Jap who
+served as housekeeper and valet.
+She hesitated a moment, taken aback. She had forgotten the servant.
+Then she closed the door behind her. “Is Lord John in?” she asked
+negligently.
+The Jap spread out his hands deprecatingly. “His lordship not at home,”
+he announced.
+Ida hesitated another moment, then ascended the stair and entered the
+living-room. “Turn on the lights,” she said, “I shall wait for him.”
+The Jap obeyed orders, bowed, and withdrew. For a moment Ida was
+tempted to telephone to the Silver Bow Club, but Mowbray was sure to
+return soon to write his letters, and she liked the idea of giving him
+a surprise. She lit a cigarette, selected a novel from the bookcase,
+and sank into the most comfortable of the chairs. The room was warm;
+both body and brain were very weary. The cool night air had driven the
+blood from her head. She yawned, dropped the book, fell sound asleep.
+She awoke as the clock was striking half-past one. She was still alone.
+For a moment she stared about her, bewildered, then rose and laughed
+aloud.
+“This is about the flattest----” She went swiftly out into the hall
+and awoke the slumbering Jap. “You little yellow devil,” she cried,
+“why didn’t you tell me that his lordship had gone to the party at the
+Country Club?”
+Once more the Jap was deprecating. “Madam did not ask.”
+Ida produced a gold piece. “Well, you are not to tell him that I came,
+nor anyone else. If you do I’ll wring your neck.”
+The Jap’s eyes, fixed upon the gold, glistened. “Why should I tell?” he
+asked philosophically; and having pocketed the coin ran downstairs and
+bowed the lady out.
+When Ida was about to turn the corner she whirled about, this time
+with a definite sensation of being followed. But the street was empty
+save for a man slouching down the hill with an unsteady gait, his head
+nodding toward his chest. It was a familiar sight in any mining town;
+nevertheless she quickened her steps, and in a moment was safe within
+her own house.
+XX
+On the morning following the departure of the geologists Gregory took
+the bit between his teeth and went in to Butte to see his wife. In his
+first moment of shock and confusion it had seemed to him best that Ora,
+whose subtlety he recognised, was the one to manipulate Ida’s still too
+formalistic mind toward the divorce court; but he was unaccustomed to
+relegate any part of his affairs to others, least of all to a woman.
+Nor did he think it necessary to inform Ora of his sudden decision.
+He might work almost double shift to keep her out of his thoughts and
+diminish temptation, and he might marry her and continue to love her
+passionately; but she would obtain little ascendency over him. He knew
+what he wanted; he had trained his will until at times it appeared
+formidable even to himself, and he was as nearly the complete male that
+regards woman, however wonderful, as the supplementary female as still
+survives.
+He had few illusions about himself, and it had crossed his mind more
+than once, since the hope of divorce had dazzled both of them, that
+for a year or two or least there must be a certain amount of friction
+between a nature like his and a complex, super-civilised, overgrown
+feminine ego like Ora Blake. While he had sat with his legs stretched
+out to the fire and his eyes half closed, his body weary, but mentally
+alert, he had received certain definite impressions of an independent
+almost anarchical mind, contemptuous of the world and its midges save
+as they might be of use to herself; of a mind too well-bred ever to
+be managing and exacting in any vulgar sense, but inexorable in its
+desires and as unscrupulous in their pursuit as her father had been; of
+a superlative refinement coupled with a power of intense and reckless
+passion found only in women possessing that quality of imagination that
+exalts and idealises the common mortal attributes. Moreover, it was a
+mind that, the first joy of submission and surrender diminished, would
+think for itself.
+Until that night when both had dropped the mask for a moment he had
+never thought of her as a complicated ego, merely as one from whom
+he felt temporarily separated after a union of centuries; and it had
+been the reluctant admission that he knew her very little, save as a
+gracious woman and his own companion, that had enabled him to school
+himself to spend long hours with her alone as before. He had tumbled
+blindly into matrimony once, and no matter how much he might love this
+woman, to whom he had seemed from the first to be united by a secret
+and ancient bond, he was determined none the less to marry the second
+time with his eyes wide open.
+But although his glimpses of Ora’s winding depths gave him moments of
+uneasiness he always fell back upon the complacent reflection that he
+was a man, a man, moreover, with a cast-iron will, and that the woman
+did not live who would not have to adapt herself to him did he take her
+to wife.
+Until the day before the party at the mines he had been content to
+drift, but a certain moment down in his own mine had given a new and
+abrupt turn to both thoughts and purpose. Ida might have spared herself
+her agonies of shame: she had not betrayed her love, but she had given
+him a distinct impression that she was employing her redoubtable
+feminine weapons to reduce him to his old allegiance. He had remembered
+for a poignant moment that he once had loved this woman to distraction,
+and during that moment he saw her again as the most beautiful and
+distracting of her sex. His brief surrender had filled him with fury.
+He had no intention of despising himself. From boyhood up he had had
+nothing but contempt for the man that did not know his own mind. If
+it had not been for this serene confidence in himself, he, who was
+constitutionally wary in spite of the secret and wistful springs of
+romance in his nature and the apparent suddenness of his bold plunges,
+never would have married Ida Hook, nor any woman, until he had sounded
+her thoroughly. But he had behaved like any hot-headed and conceited
+young fool, and, much as he now admired Ida, it both infuriated him and
+appalled him to feel even for a moment toward her as he had in his raw
+inexperienced youth.
+He therefore made up his mind to go to her like a rational being and
+ask her to give him his freedom. They had made a mistake. They were
+reasonable members of an advanced civilisation, where mistakes were
+recognised and rectified whenever possible. He did not doubt for a
+moment that reason and logic must appeal as forcibly to a woman as to
+himself.
+The door of his wife’s house was opened after the usual delay, and the
+maid told him that Mrs. Compton was upstairs in the billiard room “or
+somewheres.” He took the stairs three steps at a time lest his courage
+evaporate; but drew a long breath of relief when he entered the large
+square hall and saw nothing of Ida. He would have rung for the maid,
+but reflected that no doubt he had already provided enough gossip
+for the republic below stairs without admitting that he did not know
+his way round his wife’s house. He was about to knock on each door
+in turn when he noticed that one in a corner at the end of the hall
+was open and that it led into a narrow passageway. Beyond there was
+light, possibly in one of those boudoirs of which he had heard. Mrs.
+Murphy would have been sure to have a boudoir, and no doubt Ida, little
+disposed as she was to indolence, spent some part of her mornings in it.
+He adventured down the passageway that terminated in a large room
+full of sunlight. He saw his wife standing in the middle of this room
+looking about her with a curious expression of wistfulness. The little
+hall was carpeted, but she heard him almost as soon as he saw her; she
+would have known those light swift footsteps in a marching army. He was
+inside the room before she could reach the doorway and close it behind
+her and astonished to see a deep blush suffuse her face. His quick
+darting glance took in his surroundings as he shook hands with her. The
+room was a nursery.
+“I had two beds put in here and have just seen that they were taken
+out,” stammered Ida.
+Her embarrassment was communicable, but he said gruffly as he walked to
+the window, “Didn’t know the Murphys had children.”
+“Oh, yes, they had two little ones. Seven in all. I think it odd they
+should have left the toys here even if they are rich enough to buy toys
+every day. There is something sacred about a child’s toys.”
+Ida was merely talking against time, but she hardly could have said
+anything better calculated to arrest his attention.
+He turned and looked at her in astonishment.
+“Do you mean to intimate--that you wish you had children? You?”
+Ida’s brain as well as her body was very weary, but it sprang to action
+at once. “Oh, yes,” she said intensely. “Oh, yes! And I might have had
+two! They would be wonderful in this house.”
+“But----” He cast about desperately. “With two children you could not
+have gone to Europe.”
+“That wouldn’t have mattered.”
+“But--don’t you realise that it is this last year of unusual advantages
+that has developed you so--so--remarkably? You hated children----”
+“And do you suppose it was Europe that made me want children?”
+“Oh, of course, nothing is as simple as that. You were taken out of
+yourself, out of your narrow self-sufficient little life; all your fine
+latent powers were developed----”
+“But not altogether by Europe! Still, I don’t deny that it woke me up,
+gave me not one new point of view but many, developed me, if you like
+that better. Would you like lunch earlier? You get up at such unearthly
+hours----”
+“I’m not hungry. I want to talk to you. That is what I came for. Won’t
+you sit down--no, not here! Let us go where there are comfortable
+chairs. I--I am tired.”
+“Very well. Let us go down to the library.” As she walked before him he
+noted that her superb body, which usually looked as if set with fine
+steel springs, was heavy and listless.
+The masculine looking room below restored his balance.
+“You don’t look as well as usual,” he remarked, as he threw himself
+into the deepest of the chairs. “Yesterday was a hard day, and you had
+had those men on your hands for----”
+“I am tired,” said Ida briefly, “but it doesn’t matter. What do you
+want to talk to me about?”
+He did not answer for a few moments, then he stood up and thrust his
+hands into his pockets and scowled at the carpet. Involuntarily Ida
+also rose to her feet and braced herself, crossing her arms over her
+breast.
+“It is impossible for this to go on,” said Gregory rapidly. “It is
+unnatural. People don’t submit to broken lives in these days. I think
+you had better get a divorce and be happy. Mowbray seems to be a fine
+fellow. Of course no one doubts that he has followed you here. He could
+make you happy, and as soon as I am able--in a year or two--I shall
+give you a million; in time more.”
+“Oh! Oh!”
+“You surely cannot want to live for ever like--like--this!”
+“I have no desire to marry again. Have you?” She shot the question at
+him, every nerve on edge with suspicion.
+But the last thing in his mind was to betray Ora, and he answered
+promptly. “No. But I am absorbed in my mine, and my life will be more
+crowded every year with accumulating interests. You are a woman. You
+are young--and--and--you wish for children.”
+Ida believed that after her revelation of yesterday he had come to let
+her down gently. She determined to throw her all on one heavy stake. If
+she lost, at least she would have had the satisfaction of telling him
+that she loved him; she had already sacrificed her pride, and there was
+a reckless sweetness in the thought of revealing herself absolutely to
+this man. When a woman loves a man not quite hopelessly she experiences
+almost as much satisfaction in listening to her own confession as to
+his.
+She drew herself up, her arms still across her breast, and Gregory
+thought he had never seen a woman look so dignified and so noble.
+“Listen, Gregory,” she said, with no tremor in her voice but deepening
+sadness in her eyes, “I regret that I have no children because they
+would be yours. I am willing to live and die alone because I have
+lost your love. I know how I lost it, but, as I look back over my
+crudity and ignorance, I do not see how I could have kept it. You were
+immeasurably above and beyond me. Nature, or some mental inheritance,
+gave you sensitiveness, refinement, distinction, to say nothing of
+brains. I had to achieve all that I am now. I was a raw conceited fool
+like thousands of American girls of any class, who think they are
+just a little too good for this world. I had ceased to love you in
+my inordinate love of myself, and the natural consequence was, that
+as I made no attempt to improve myself, I lost you as soon as my halo
+of novelty had disappeared. I took for granted, however, that I was
+returning from Europe to the old conditions. When I discovered that
+you had no such intention I was piqued, astonished, angry. But when
+I thought it all out I understood. You were within your rights, and
+you have behaved with decency and self-respect. I have nothing but
+unmitigated contempt for two people that continue to live together as
+a mere matter of habit and convenience. They are the real immoralists
+of the world, and the girls that ‘go wrong’ know it and laugh at the
+reformers. Of course I never had ceased to love you down deep, but it
+took just the course of conduct you pursued to make me known to myself.
+I realise that it is hopeless--too late. I never intended to betray
+myself, but I did so in an unguarded moment yesterday. Otherwise I
+never should have told you all this. I have realised since then that
+I have lost you irrevocably, but at least if I cannot be your wife I
+will be no man’s, and I shall continue to bear your name--and see you
+sometimes.”
+Gregory, feeling as if he were being flayed, had dropped upon the edge
+of a chair and buried his face in his hands. When she finished he said
+hoarsely: “I never dreamed--I never imagined--I thought you incapable
+of real feeling----”
+“I think I was then. And since--Well, you are only a man, after all,
+and I made you think what I chose until yesterday--Do you mean----” she
+added sharply, “that you did not guess--did not _know_ yesterday?”
+“It never occurred to me. I thought you merely were flirting a
+little----”
+“Hi!” cried Ida. Then she got back into her rôle. “It doesn’t matter,”
+she said with sad triumph. “I am glad I have told you. As for the
+future? You have convinced Butte that we are the best of friends. Stay
+away if you wish unless I give an entertainment where your absence
+would cause too much comment. You don’t want to marry again, but you
+may feel yourself as free as air. And one day--when you are worn out,
+tired of the everlasting struggle in which you moneymakers work harder
+than the day labourer, with his eight-hour laws and freedom from the
+terrific responsibilities of money; when you begin to break and want
+a home, I will make one for you. There is the doorbell. Lord John is
+coming for lunch. I shall give him his dismissal--once for all.”
+Gregory stood up and took her hand. He had a vague masculine sense of
+unfairness somewhere but he could not begin to define it, and he was as
+deeply impressed as discouraged. “You are a grand woman, Ida,” he said.
+“This is not an hour that any man forgets. I wish that you might be
+happy.”
+“Nature never intended that people on this planet should be happy--only
+in spots, anyhow. And don’t worry about me. You have put me in the way
+of getting a great deal out of this old game we call life, and I am
+grateful to you. Good-bye.”
+They shook hands and Gregory went out into the hall as the maid was
+admitting Lord John. This time the men made no pretence at politeness.
+They merely glared and passed.
+XXI
+The Primo vein had been recovered some time since and Ora had traversed
+the fault drift twice and watched the drilling from the station; not
+only to assert her rights as mistress of the mine but to experience the
+sensations she had anticipated. She soon discovered that when a woman
+is in love, and the issue doubtful, other interests fail to provide
+sensations. But she went down into the mine every day and roamed
+through the older workings. She was tormented and restless, but by no
+means without hope; and this being the case she sometimes wondered
+why she continued to write to Valdobia as if nothing had occurred to
+interfere with their tacit engagement. It was her duty to tell him the
+truth, at once, but she switched off all other currents every Saturday
+morning and wrote her Roman long gay tantalising letters; being gifted
+as a scribe, like so many women, she made them notable with amusing and
+enlightening incidents of mining-camp life.
+She had not seen Gregory since Monday evening. He had gone suddenly to
+Butte on the morning following the visit of the geologists, and had
+telephoned her that he should take the afternoon train to the Capital
+and no doubt be detained for several days. She had expected that he
+would telephone or telegraph from Helena; that he would write was too
+much to expect; she had never seen his handwriting. But he had not
+recognised her existence.
+Four days after his departure she went down into her mine and walked as
+far as the ragged opening blasted by the Apex men, thinking of Ida. How
+much longer would it be before Mowbray overcame her prejudices, and her
+own independent and proud spirit revolted under her husband’s complete
+indifference? Few women were given such an opportunity for revenge both
+subtle and open as Mowbray was offering to Ida Compton.
+It was at this point in her reflections that Ora heard a light
+footfall coming down the fault drift of Perch of the Devil. Without
+an instant’s hesitation she descended the short ladder that had been
+placed between the two drifts for the benefit of the geologists, and
+relit her candle. She met Gregory in the little station. He also held
+a candle, but he was so startled at the apparition that he dropped it.
+She thrust the point of her candlestick into a wooden post.
+“I was going over to see you,” he said unsteadily as he picked up
+his candle, relighted it, and mechanically followed her example. He
+turned abruptly and walked half way up the drift and back, while she
+stood still, shivering with anxiety. Something had put his determined
+serenity out of joint. A crisis impended. She felt her unsteadiness
+and sat down suddenly on the edge of an ore car, fancying this
+dimly lighted room and the black passage leading to it looked as a
+death-house cell must look on the eve of execution.
+Finally she stammered: “What is it? Please tell me?”
+He leaned against the wall in front of her. “I am afraid it’s all
+up,” he said lifelessly. “I went in on Tuesday to ask Ida to obtain a
+divorce. She refused to listen. She has no wish to remarry and will
+have none of divorce. Nothing could have been more definite than our
+interview.”
+“But--but surely in time--if we have patience----”
+“There is no hope. Mowbray entered as I left. She intended to dismiss
+him at once.”
+Ora, without reasoning, of which she was incapable at the moment, felt
+that he had been convinced by more than argument and mere words. She
+flung her arms over her lap and dropping her head upon them burst into
+a wild transport of tears and sobs; she was so unused to all expression
+of emotion that she neither knew nor cared how to control it, and the
+tears swept out the floodgates that had held her passion in check.
+She looked up suddenly and saw Gregory standing over her with twitching
+face and clenched hands; and exulting in the complete abandonment of
+all the controls that civilisation has bred, she sprang to her feet,
+flung herself into his arms and her own arms about his neck. She had
+her immediate reward, for he nearly crushed her, and he kissed her
+until they both were breathless and reeling.
+This was the passion she had read and dreamed of; for once the
+realities were commensurate; instinct warned her to postpone argument
+and prolong the moment to its utmost. There was room in her brain
+for the doubt if such a moment ever could come again, so little of
+love-making is wholly unpremeditated. So she clung to him and kissed
+him, and in that dim cavern his dark face, so reminiscent of those
+great prehistoric races that interested him, looked as he felt,
+primeval man that had found his mate.
+But, whatever his ancient inheritance, he was the immediate product
+of a highly practical civilisation. His keen calculating brain sent a
+lightning flash across his passion. He lifted her off her feet and sat
+her down on the ore car. Then he took a candlestick in either hand.
+“Come to the other station,” he said peremptorily, and led the way to a
+less dangerous seclusion.
+He was half way up the fault drift before Ora, subdued but rebellious,
+stooped mechanically and found the veil that she wore in place of a
+hat when in the mines. She followed him slowly. She felt rather than
+reasoned that she had missed her opportunity and wished angrily that
+she had had lovers and knew better how to manage men. By the time she
+reached the shaft station the confusion in her mind had lifted somewhat
+and she had arrived at the conclusion that she could not overcome him
+in the same way again, but must use her brains. She sat down on the box
+and smoothed her hair with apparent unconcern.
+Gregory had disposed of the two candlesticks and said, his voice
+still unsteady: “There isn’t much to say, but I want to have my last
+interview with you in my mine. I cannot get away from here for two or
+three days. Will you leave at once?”
+“Will you listen to me? I have my right to be heard?”
+“What is there to say?”
+She clasped her hands in her lap and looked up at him. Gregory
+sighed and set his teeth. She looked surpassingly lovely and rather
+helpless--women, at their best, always seemed to him pathetic.
+“Gregory,” she said, “you don’t doubt that I love you?”
+“No. But what is the use? Do you suppose I am going to make you my
+mistress--all Montana would know it in less than no time. I’m no
+saint, but it wouldn’t work--not for us!”
+“But you want me?”
+“Oh!” He turned away, then swung round upon her. She had stood up. Her
+head was bent forward. “You should help me out!” he cried angrily.
+“Can’t you see--it’s you I’m thinking of. Do you suppose I want all
+the sporting women in Butte making horrible jokes about you--all your
+friends cutting you? What’s a man good for if he doesn’t protect a
+woman?”
+“Love affairs have lasted for years without being found out.”
+“Precious seldom. And we are not buried in a big city. I must live
+out here and you would either have to live out here too, or I should
+be sneaking into your house in Butte. A business-like intrigue!
+Remember I lived somewhat before I married. Sentiment and romance soon
+evaporate----”
+“Oh, yes, that is always what I have thought when I have read the
+American novelists’ attempts to portray what they call a ‘guilty love’.
+The only word that expresses it delicately is _liaison_, and the
+setting should be foreign as well. There is no background here. We are
+still under the drab shadow of Puritanism. I have heard it estimated
+that twenty-five thousand American women go abroad every year to
+indulge in a fleeting _liaison_ that gives them courage to endure the
+desperately material and commonplace life of this country for another
+year. You don’t understand that because you never have been in Europe.
+But Egypt--Italy--in Southern Europe anywhere--with its unbridled
+beauties of nature and its far more poetic beauties that centuries of
+art have given it--and a thousand years of love behind us--Oh, cannot
+you imagine how wonderful love would be? Do you think _I_ should ever
+want to come back?”
+Gregory was staring at her. “Do you mean,” he stammered, “that you
+would sacrifice your reputation openly--your future--do you care enough
+for that?”
+“I mean I love you so exclusively that I wish I had a thousand times
+more to sacrifice.”
+“But--but--there are always Americans travelling--and you know many
+Europeans----”
+“They are always easy to avoid. There are villas with walls, and pink
+flowers on top of the walls. And we could travel and see the wonders of
+art when the tourist season was over. Nor would I monopolise you. You
+could have the society of men of brains and achievement everywhere.”
+He continued to stare at her radiant wistful face. He had known that
+she loved him, but it had never occurred to him that she would be
+willing to give up the world for his sake. She was a proud woman, an
+aristocrat, she had an exceptional position everywhere; the great world
+when they parted stood ready to offer its consolations.
+She had unrolled a heavenly vision! His mind had revolted from debasing
+her to the status of what is euphemistically known in the West as
+“sporting women”; he also remembered the immediate disillusionments
+of his younger manhood and wondered if the hideousness of Butte had
+been responsible. The Mediterranean with its ancient civilisations
+flourishing and forgotten before the historic period, Egypt, full-grown
+offspring of a still more ancient but vanished civilisation--both
+called to that archæological instinct so closely allied to the
+geological, made him fancy he heard faint ancestral voices. Ora’s
+eyes were holding his, and her gaze was as powerful as his own. For
+the moment he no longer was a son of the newest section of the newest
+world. The turquoise waters of the Mediterranean spread before him, but
+he saw it alive with galleys----
+He jerked his eyes away, folded his arms and stared downward. He must
+think rationally, not with vapours in his brain. It might be that he
+would be more than fool to sacrifice to any consideration the one
+chance for happiness in perfect union that life would offer him.
+Suddenly he became aware that he was staring at the rocky floor of his
+mine, of its first level; the flickering candle flames revealed bits
+of bright yellow metal. And below was the second level with its superb
+shoot of copper ore ten feet wide. And below, on the third level, still
+was the vein far more beautiful than virgin gold. And down--down--in
+those vast unlocked caverns--what mysteries--what wonder-ores might not
+the earth harbour for him alone to find and name----
+“What are you thinking of?” cried Ora sharply. Then she threw out her
+arms wildly. “I know! I know! It is those accursed ores! Oh, God! What
+have I in me, I, a mere woman, to compensate for the loss of a mine? I
+was a fool--Of course! Of course!”
+But Gregory, although his blood had frozen in his veins at the horrid
+vision of a permanent divorce from his mine, would make no such
+admission.
+“Ora,” he said quietly, “it would be very wonderful--for about three
+months. You would despise me if I were content to dawdle away my life
+in an olive grove, or throw away my best years and these great energies
+nature has given me, doing nothing in that old civilisation in which
+I could find no place. And in time you would resent the weakness that
+had stranded you with no recourse in life but myself. That sort of
+thing has never been a success and never will be, because nature did
+not make man to live on love alone, and it is much the same with the
+intellectual woman. It wouldn’t work. Not with us. I have known from
+the beginning that it must be marriage or nothing. And Ida would not
+divorce me if I ran away with you. She would be entitled to her revenge
+and she would take it.” He leaned forward and signalled the station
+call. “Please take the skip when it comes. I am going below.” And he
+ran down the ladder.
+XXII
+Ora got into the skip and was whisked to the surface.
+She drew the veil over her head and face, wishing dimly that she had
+gone home through the mines; but a moment later the veil fell to her
+shoulders unnoticed. As she crossed the Apex claim she was vaguely
+aware that someone, almost in her path, lifted his hat. She bowed
+automatically, feeling like those poor wound-up royalties who must
+smile graciously upon their loyal people even though a cancer devour
+the body or the brain reel with sorrow.
+Whalen, abnormal in vanity and conceit though he was, took no
+offence; not only was this in his estimation the one great lady of
+the Western annex, but he was startled by the expression in her fixed
+eyes of anguish, terror, and surprise. He had seen Gregory Compton go
+down into his mine not a half an hour ago, and it was easy for his
+fictionised if unimaginative mind to conjure up a hazy picture of the
+scene underground. He turned very red, partly from gratification at
+being so close to human passion and pain, but more from the knowledge
+that he shortly could offer all the elements for another and a still
+more dramatic crisis. At the same time he could do the one woman he
+admired in this wilderness a good turn and heal his cankerous ache for
+vengeance.
+Ora went on to her little house and sank into a chair before the
+burnt-out logs. Her body felt as if it were a vessel into which
+had been poured all the waters of woman’s bitterness and despair.
+Nevertheless, her predominant sensation was astonishment. For a year
+she had lived in a fool’s paradise, indissolubly mated with Gregory
+Compton. It was only in the moment when the idea of his own divorce
+flashed into her mind that she realised she had meant to have him for
+ever, that her imagination had been a mere playground on which she had
+romped, and abruptly abandoned when she saw reality standing at the
+gate.
+Since that day, interrupted only by the fevers and doubts of love,
+she had accepted with joy her predestined fate as the visible mate
+of Gregory Compton. Else what did it all mean? She had counted
+on marriage, but that respectable solution had faded into utter
+insignificance as soon as the shock of Ida’s refusal had passed. To
+fling the world aside, to regard it as a mere whirling speck in the
+void, followed as a matter of course. She and this man would fill all
+space.
+And she had lost. It was over. _Over. Over._ For a time the
+astonishment consequent upon the mental reiteration of this fact held
+her. Her mind, quick, alert, sinuous as she had always found it, was
+unable to readjust itself. How could anything be over that manifestly
+had been created to go on for ever? What, then, did it all mean: that
+mutual recognition when they had sat together that night in Butte,
+that long mental obsession, this later perfect understanding, this
+indubitable power to find in each other complete happiness? Over. And
+by the man’s decree. How odd. How odd. And what a tragic waste.
+She knew that the mine had pulled him, but she was too much the woman
+to take a mine seriously. There had been some other reason. He loved
+her; she never doubted that. He had resisted--why? She groped back
+through her limited experience, wondering if the trouble were that
+she had had so little. Life had not begun with her until a year ago.
+She had been a mere student, deliberately living in the unreal, often
+deluding, world of books, the worst of all preparations for life.
+Some women were independent of experience, knew men by instinct. She
+felt that Ida, in a similar situation, would have had her way. She
+had not managed cleverly; no doubt with all her charm and her natural
+allurement for men, even a certain acquired coquetry, she was one of
+those women that could theorise brilliantly, but failed utterly to
+manage their own affairs at critical moments.
+She was well aware that she had not been developing along ideal
+lines of late, particularly since she had come out here with the
+unadmitted intention of stealing her friend’s husband. By all the laws
+of tradition she should be wicked all through. Pride, diffidence,
+fastidiousness--one or all, she was in no condition to decide--had
+prevented her from playing the deliberate rôle of siren. She sighed and
+wished that life could be played upon the formula adopted by so many
+brilliant novelists: a steady unrelenting development of character upon
+strictly logical lines and by means of cunningly created situations,
+that was as much like life as a mother’s formula would be for the
+thoughts and deeds of her children at a given hour a year hence.
+Ora did not know that most people in their rare moments of honest
+introspection find themselves singularly imperfect. She had looked for
+greater consistency in her complex recesses; assuming that if she made
+up her mind to take the husband of any woman, and that woman her best
+friend, she would be wholly hard and wicked, and, for the sake of the
+result, quite willing to achieve this consistent imperfection. And such
+hardness would be the surest of all solaces in the event of failure.
+She felt neither hard nor nearly as wicked as she should, but she did
+recognise the fact that if she had one more chance she would win by
+hook or crook.
+Her thoughts swung to Ida. What had she said to Gregory in that last
+decisive interview? Ida was as clever as the devil. She would watch
+her chance and make just the right appeal at the right moment. Gregory
+could be ruthless to the woman of whom he had wearied or to the woman
+he loved, but if his wife played upon his honour, his Western chivalry,
+his sense of fair play, and reiterated her own rights--to her would he
+lower his flag if it struck the life out of his own heart, and left
+himself nothing to feed the deep passion and romance of his nature for
+the rest of his life.
+In any case Ida had won.
+Once more Ora wished that she had gone to work when she found herself
+penniless after her father’s death. She would have developed normally,
+and it was unthinkable that in the little world of Butte she would not
+have met Gregory Compton while he was free. Then not only would she be
+happy today but know nothing of those abysmal depths in her soul which
+she execrated while yielding to them and lamenting that for the time
+being they were no worse. Love may be divine when all goes well, or
+one is born into the cult of the martyr, but when it comes too late
+to passionate natures associated with virile and accomplished minds,
+it can be the very spawn of hell. Ora’s regret that she was not of the
+breed of those finished wantons of history that rose to fame on the
+shattered hearts of men was born of expediency. Could she have been
+given her choice and Gregory Compton she would have elected to be fine
+and noble, consummating the lofty dictates of her superior intellectual
+endowment. Not yet had she realised that lacking a ruthless centralised
+ideal, rarely allied to brilliant intellects, the souls of women even
+more than those of men (who have less time and more poise) are the
+playthings of Circumstance.
+She became aware that her Chinaman was crossing the room, and before
+she could refocus her wandering mental vision and intercept him, he had
+opened the front door and admitted Professor Whalen.
+XXIII
+Ida had broken a dinner engagement and sat alone in her library. She
+knew that Gregory had passed through Butte that day on his way from
+Helena to Pony; she had seen him leave the Block where his lawyers
+had their offices and jump into a waiting taxi. He was not the man to
+take a cab for anything but an imminent train. She had rushed home,
+but he had neither called nor telephoned. She reasoned that he would
+be more than man if he were not reluctant to see her again after their
+last embarrassing interview, that there was no cause for fresh doubts,
+and that there was literally nothing for her to do at present but
+continue to play her waiting game. But she felt both sad and nervous,
+and wondered if it were in her to despair, to “cut and run” like
+other women; or whether it might not be wise to absent herself for a
+time. Gregory was the sort of man to appreciate delicacy, and after
+an absence of two months they would meet quite naturally. She could
+visit Yellowstone and Glacier Park, and send him pleasant impersonal
+postcards.
+But although she hesitated to acknowledge it, she was tired of her
+waiting game, she wished that “fate would get a move on”, and she had
+left her husband once with unforeseen results. She leaned her elbows
+on her knees and pressed her hands against her face. She had always
+cherished a high opinion of her cleverness in regard to men, but she
+was nonplussed. For a woman of her resource there should be some
+alternative to waiting. She knew that she had made a deep impression
+on her husband in that momentous interview, but who could say that he
+had not deliberately put the memory of it out of his mind? Certainly
+there was no sign that it had softened him or paved the way for her
+reinstatement into his life.
+She was alarmed at her waning self-control. During these last few days
+she barely had been able to play her part in society; the people at
+the various functions she had attended had seemed to her confused and
+absent mind like marionettes that she could sweep off the stage with
+her arm, and she had retreated into her shell lest she insult them
+irreparably.
+She brought her heavy brows together. Could there be another woman
+after all? Gregory was cleverer than any detective. Why should it occur
+to him to suggest divorce, he a man so absorbed in a mine that he had
+forgotten how to live--merely out of consideration for a discarded wife
+whose existence he generally managed to forget? It was certainly odd,
+and its idiosyncrasies grew and swelled as she brooded. She wondered
+if she had been a fool. But who in heaven’s name could the woman be?
+Of course it was only a passing fancy, but could she wait, _could she
+wait_?
+She was aroused by a slight cough, discreet but full of subtle
+insolence. She sprang to her feet, and Whalen smiled as he saw her
+drawn face and bloodshot eyes. He stood just within the door, and held
+a cap in his hand. He wore a light automobile coat; a pair of goggles
+only half covered his bulging brow. His upper teeth were clamped down
+over his lower lip, a habit when steadying his nerves. Ida thought she
+had never seen him look so hideous, so like a mongrel cur.
+“What do you want?” she asked.
+“How gracious you are! How like Mrs. Blake, who would not forget her
+manners if she----”
+“I’ve got no manners for your sort. Get out.”
+“Oh, not yet. I’ve something to say. I’ve waited for over a year, but
+my time has come----”
+“You’ll go out the way you went last time if you don’t say what you’ve
+got to say pretty quick and get out by yourself.”
+Whalen looked over his shoulder nervously, and measured the distance
+to the front door. He had asked leave of the maid to announce himself,
+and, when she had disappeared, reopened the door and left it ajar.
+“It won’t take me long,” he said grimly. “It took me a little longer to
+tell Mrs. Blake, for she was hard to convince; but she _was_ convinced
+before I left. It is merely this: I saw you go into Lord John Mowbray’s
+rooms on Monday night shortly after ten o’clock and come out at
+half-past one.”
+“Oh, you did, did you? I had a feeling all the time there was a sneak
+in the neighbourhood. Well, much good your spying will do you. Lord
+John was at the Country Club until three in the morning and everybody
+knows it.”
+She spoke calmly, but she was profoundly disturbed. She continued,
+however, in the same tones of cutting contempt, for she saw that he was
+taken aback, “I merely misunderstood an invitation of Lord John’s for
+a bridge party. I thought it was for that night, and although I was
+surprised to find myself the first and Lord John not there, I sat down
+to wait and fell asleep. I had had a hard day. I only condescend to
+explain,” she continued witheringly, “because you are as venomous as a
+mad dog and it is as well to muzzle you at once.”
+“I don’t believe a word of that yarn, and neither will anyone else. I
+certainly managed to convince Mrs. Blake----”
+“Not she. She must have laughed in your face----”
+“Oh no! Not Mrs. Blake! But I will admit that it was not easy to make
+her believe ill of you. Perhaps I should not have succeeded, but when a
+woman is eager to believe----” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders;
+but once more he cast a quick glance at the line of retreat. The heavy
+library table was between them.
+“What the devil do you mean?” Ida spoke roughly, but her heart began to
+hammer. She felt a sudden impulse to run away, but she stood rigidly
+and glared at him. “Here!” she continued, “come to the point. Spit
+out your poison. What particular object had you in trying to set my
+best friend against me? It would have been more like you to run to a
+newspaper.”
+“That later. I wanted to do Mrs. Blake a good turn and at the same
+time let her be the one to tell your husband that he could secure his
+freedom without further delay----”
+“What do you mean? What do you mean?” Ida’s eyes were staring as if
+they saw a vision of herself at the stake; she tossed off her pride
+as she would a hampering cloak. “Ora! Ora! Oh, not Ora! You liar!”
+she screamed. “Prove what you said quick----” But he saw that she had
+caught the edge of the table and that her body was swaying.
+“Oh, neither will deny it now,” he replied in a tone of deadly quiet.
+“She went out there to be near him, no doubt of that; and he’s spent
+hours on end in that bungalow. I went to Helena and back with him and I
+guessed that something was up, for he was glummer and more disagreeable
+than usual; and this afternoon when I saw her come up out of his mine
+I guessed they had had a painful scene and parted. So I told her she
+had the game in her own hands, and that I’d go on the stand and swear
+to what I saw. No husband would believe anything but the truth, nor
+this town either. You might prove that your lord made a fool of you and
+amused himself elsewhere, but you’re done for all the same; and I guess
+Mr. Compton would manage his divorce all right. Then two people that
+are madly in love will be happy----”
+Ida’s strength rushed back and the world turned scarlet. She picked
+up a heavy bronze from the table and hurled it at him. But Whalen was
+expecting a physical assault in some form. He ducked and fled. When she
+reached the open door he was not in sight.
+XXIV
+Ora watched the clock until twenty minutes after eleven.
+The miners changed shift promptly, and the last should have gone down
+the Primo shaft by a quarter past at the latest. The shaft house would
+be empty, as no hoisting was being done on the night shift.
+She turned out the light in her living-room, wrapped herself in a dark
+lodenmantel, a long cape with a hood that she had worn while climbing
+in Bavaria, and let herself out. She walked through the grove to the
+edge of the bluff above her camp and stood for a few moments, listening
+intently. Some ten minutes since she had heard the warning shriek of an
+automobile horn, but the garage of her manager, who had motored Whalen
+into Butte, was on the flat, and he had had time either to go down into
+the mine or climb to his own cottage.
+The moon was at the full and the scene as sharply outlined as by day,
+although less animated. Save for the usual raucous noises of a mining
+camp the only sign of life was in the saloon. Some one was playing a
+pianola, and through the open door she saw men standing at the bar. For
+a moment she was tempted to take the surface path across the camps; but
+the risk was too great. Some one was sure to be abroad, and although
+she had been willing to brave the scorn of the world when there was no
+apparent alternative, she shrank from the plain Saxon the miners would
+use if they saw her. From Gregory’s shaft house she could reach his
+cabin by the path behind the abandoned cut.
+A light was burning in her shaft house. She was not expert enough to
+descend the ladder candle in hand, and for a moment faltered above the
+darkness of the well; she had not been down before at night. Then she
+reflected that it was always night in the mines and descended without
+further hesitation.
+At the foot of the shaft the usual station was one with the chamber
+left after removing the first large deposit of ore. They had merely
+cut through the vein at this point without stoping, and the great
+excavation had a lofty roof. Ora struck a match and lit a candle
+near by. On the day of the geologists’ visit a number of miner’s
+candlesticks had been thrust into what little wood there was in the
+chamber, and the candles were but half burnt out. Then she lit the one
+she had brought in her pocket. Accustomed as she was by this time to
+the route underground by chamber and gallery to the Perch mine, she
+always picked her way carefully, particularly down the first drift;
+her lessees, impatient at the leanness of the connecting vein, and not
+wishing to spend either the time or the money to sink the shaft another
+hundred feet, had understoped, and the holes were ill-covered.
+She crossed the large black cavern toward the first of these tunnels,
+or drifts, sweeping the candle about her head, and then holding
+it downward, for she always feared cave-ins. The room was almost
+untimbered, owing to the hardness of the rock.
+She had almost reached the mouth of the drift, when she paused
+suddenly, listened intently, and then blew out her candle. Some one
+was on the ladder. It was one of the miners, no doubt. Something had
+detained him above ground, and not daring to summon the shaft house
+man, he was sneaking down the ladder. He would go on down to the second
+level of the mine. Ora stood motionless, her hood pulled over her white
+face. Her miners were good average men, but the saloon flourished, and
+was no doubt responsible for the present delinquency.
+Then once more she listened intently. The upper part of her body
+stiffened like a startled animal’s. Whoever was coming down was making
+his first descent by foot; not only was his progress slow, but he was
+breathing heavily, and hesitating between rungs, as if it were his
+first experience of an inclined ladder. Miners hate the shaft ladder,
+and will resort to any subterfuge to avoid it, but they are experts
+in “negotiating” it nevertheless. No doubt this was some green hand,
+recently employed. Or possibly the man was drunk.
+Then suddenly Ora turned cold with the chill of the mine itself, a
+mere physical attribute that her warm blood had never deigned to
+notice before. A form was slowly coming into view below the high roof
+of the cavern, and although it was little more than a blot on the
+general blackness, Ora’s keen eyes, accustomed to the faint relief
+given by the candle near the shaft, noted as it descended further
+that it covered more of the ladder than it should. Miners are almost
+invariably thin and they wear overalls. This person wore a heavy cape
+like her own. But it was not alone the garment, which any miner would
+scorn, that betrayed the sex of the invader; it may have been the
+physical awkwardness, the shallow breathing, or some subtle psychical
+emanation--or all--that warned Ora of the approach not only of a woman
+but of a malignant force.
+And this woman was following her. There was no doubt in her mind of
+that. She suffered a moment or two of furious unreasoning terror as
+she crouched against the wall and watched that shadow against a shadow
+slowly descend the final rungs of the ladder. Her first impulse had
+been to flee down the drift, but there was danger of falling into one
+of the gouge holes and disabling herself. She dared not relight her
+candle.
+Shaking, terrified as she never had been in her life--for she was
+normally brave, and it was not a normal woman she feared but that
+aura of hate and lust for vengeance--undecided, putting up a frantic
+prayer that Gregory would come to her rescue, she pulled the hood over
+her face and almost sank to her knees. The woman, breathing heavily,
+reached the last rung and touched the ground as warily as a cat. For a
+moment she stood drawing in deep breaths like sighs, but which escaped,
+to tormented ears, like a hiss. Ora, her eyelids almost meeting over
+the intense concentration of her gaze, saw the woman fling back the
+mantle that covered her, throw out her arms as if to relax the muscles
+after the strain of the descent. Then she turned suddenly, snatched the
+candlestick from the wall and held it above her head.
+For the moment Ora thought her heart had stopped. The woman was Ida.
+Her heavy lowered brows were like a heavy band across the white
+ghastliness of her face. Her eyes glittered horribly. Her lips were a
+mere tight line. Her black hair, loosened, fell over her face. Ora’s
+hypnotised gaze tore itself from those slowly moving eyes and lowered
+itself instinctively to Ida’s right hand. It held the stiletto she had
+given her in Genoa. The slanting rays of the candle fell on the jewels
+of the hilt. Then she knew that Ida had followed her down into the mine
+to kill her.
+Her courage came back as quickly as it had fled. Ora’s brain might
+be democratic but her soul was haughty. The friendship of the past
+eighteen months between herself and this woman suddenly shaped itself
+as forced and artificial, and she was filled with a cold surprise and
+anger. _Who_ was Ida Hook that she should presume to question Ora
+Stratton? Similar reflections, no doubt, stiffened many a noble when on
+his way to the guillotine at the behest of the _canaille_.
+Ora was beyond the ray of the candle at present but Ida was beginning
+to move forward, her eyes almost blank in spite of their brilliancy,
+moving from side to side, striving to pierce the darkness, her head
+bent forward to catch the slightest sound. It was evident that she had
+seen Ora go into the shaft house, and knew that she could not be far
+off.
+Ora took the automatic from the bag at her waist, pointed it at the
+roof of the cave and fired twice. The din was terrific in that confined
+space. Ida shrieked, dropped the stiletto and candle, and flung her
+arms about her head. Ora hastily lighted two other candles, and then
+retreated against the wall. She believed that the terrible inhibition
+in Ida’s tormented mind was shattered, but she kept the automatic in
+her hand, nevertheless.
+The reverberations died away and once more the mine was as silent as
+only a deserted level of a mine can be. Ida raised her head and saw
+Ora. She gave a strangled cry and moved forward a step. Then her arms
+fell heavily to her side. She did not even pick up the dagger. The
+inhuman tension of her mind relaxed, the body barely had force enough
+to hold itself together.
+“I came here to kill you,” she said. “But I can’t do it. I’ve been mad
+for hours, and I wish I could have found you in bed as I thought I
+would. I could have killed you then. But I saw you come down here--Have
+you told him?”
+“No. He was down in the mine until eleven. I was on my way to tell
+him--to break down his resistance tonight!”
+“His resistance?” Ida raised her head. She had lost the pitch necessary
+for murder, but her mind began to recover its alertness and her
+drooping body to set its springs in motion. “What do you mean by that?
+I thought he was in love with you.”
+Ora laughed. She was filled with an utter despair, but the knife was
+still in Ida and she could turn it round. “Oh, yes, make no doubt of
+that. He loves me and will as long as he lives----”
+“Not much he won’t!” roared Ida. “If I’ve been too quick for you you’ll
+never tell him now, and he practically gave me his word the other day
+that he’d never even ask me for a divorce again. That means you go and
+go quick, and if you think Gregory will have nothing to do but sit down
+and nurse your memory----”
+The blood flew to Ora’s head and she hastily dropped the automatic into
+her bag. “I’ll not go!” she said. “And what is more I shall tell him.
+When Gregory knows that you spent three hours in Mowbray’s rooms at
+night----”
+“Mowbray was not there! He was at the Country Club----”
+“_Was_ he?”
+“Yes, and it can be proved. Moreover, you know me well enough----”
+“It doesn’t matter what can be proved or what I believe. You waited for
+Mowbray--Do you suppose that Gregory--or any court of law----”
+“My God!” cried Ida. “You! You! I think it was that drove me off my
+head more than the prospect of disgrace and losing Gregory. You! What
+in God’s name is possessing you? I always knew that you would be the
+concentrated essence of all damn fool women that ever lived when you
+did fall in love, but I never believed it was in you to do anything
+dishonourable----”
+“And would you have believed that you, the concentrated essence of all
+that is cool, deliberate, calculating, would ever be inspired to commit
+murder? And for a man? What’s the use of talking? People possessed by
+love either are wholly themselves while it lasts, or are abnormal and
+should not be held accountable even to the law. I suppose this means
+that you too love Gregory Compton?”
+“Yes it does!” cried Ida, the more vehemently because it shamed her
+to put this unwonted weakness into words. “I do, damn it all! I do. I
+thought I was immune, but I guess we are all born with the microbe and
+it bites when the soil is good and ready.” Her anger had vanished,
+for in spite of Ora’s defiance she knew that she was master of the
+situation. She kicked the stiletto contemptuously aside, clasped her
+hips with her large firm hands and threw back her shoulders. “Now!” she
+said, “admit right here that you know I didn’t go to Mowbray’s rooms
+for any old intrigue. That kind of thing isn’t in me and you know it.”
+“I will confess I was surprised--I refused to believe it at first--Oh,
+I suppose I don’t. But it doesn’t matter----”
+“Are you ready to come with me this minute to Gregory and tell him that
+yarn--knowing that I can prove Mowbray wasn’t there--I say _go with
+me_--not by yourself.”
+Ora made no reply. She was beaten but she was not ready to admit it.
+“You may bet your life on one thing,” continued Ida. “You go with me
+or you don’t go at all, for I’ll stick to you like wet paint until
+this thing is settled once for all. Now just tell me what you meant a
+while back by Gregory’s resistance? When you found I wouldn’t consent
+to a divorce--of course you put him up to ask me, you traitorous little
+white devil--did you want him to elope with you?”
+“Yes I did!”
+“And he wouldn’t!”
+“He--he would not sacrifice me----”
+“Shucks! Where did you want him to go? To Europe?”
+“Yes.”
+“Good Lord! And what did you think you were going to do with him over
+there? Spoon in orange groves for forty years?”
+“There are several thousand resources in Europe besides orange
+groves--but you would never understand----”
+“Oh, don’t I understand? It’s I that does understand, not you, or you
+would never have made such an asinine proposition to Gregory Compton.
+Why on earth didn’t you propose some place with _mines_--Mexico,
+Alaska, China--Then you might have stood some show--but
+Europe--Gregory--Do you remember those American business men that
+always looked as if they had left their minds in an office at the top
+of a thirty-story building, and their bodies were being led round by a
+string? The vision of Gregory astray in Europe for the rest of his life
+would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Talk about the conceit of
+man. It isn’t a patch on that of a woman when she gets the bug inside
+her head that she can be ‘everything’ to a man. I can manage Gregory
+till doomsday when I get him back, but you’d lose him inside of six
+months no matter which way you got him----”
+“That couldn’t be true! I recognised that he was mine--_mine_--the
+night we met before I left----”
+“What’s that?”
+“Oh, yes, I met him once before I went abroad with you--we talked for
+an hour----”
+“And he was the man you wrote those letters to in Europe----”
+“Yes.”
+“And I your most intimate friend!”
+“I never sent them, and you did not care for him then----”
+“Oh, I don’t see you apologising if you had turned heaven into hell.
+You made up your mind then to have him, I suppose?”
+“No. And not even when I came out here. I only wanted to be with
+him--know him a little better--have that much--Oh, I couldn’t make you
+understand any more than that I can suffer as much as if I were the
+best of women who had lost her husband by death. It was only after
+Mowbray came--there seemed a prospect----”
+“Well, I don’t know that I blame you so much, for I certainly bluffed
+it pretty well. I can forgive you for that but not for meaning to make
+me out a strumpet and send me to the muck heap, disgraced for the rest
+of my life. Well, come along. Let us go straight to Gregory and let him
+decide.”
+Ora did not move.
+“It’s either that or you go back to Butte with me tonight and start for
+Europe tomorrow morning.”
+“I know when I am beaten. I will leave. And don’t imagine that you have
+won because you are in the right. We have emerged from the dark ages of
+superstition, and we know that the wicked are not punished if they are
+strong enough. Nor are the virtuous rewarded for mere virtue--not once
+in ten thousand times. You have won because you are stronger than I.
+That is all.”
+“It’s enough for me.”
+Ora laughed. “Do you really believe that you can win him back? He’ll
+not forget me, because I can always fire his imagination. He is as
+indifferent to you as only a man can be when the woman is an old story.”
+“That was a nasty one! But I’m not worrying. I have been at a
+disadvantage since I got back, thinking my only rival was a hole in
+the ground. But take this from me, Ora: when a woman knows where she
+stands, and has the inside track, and has her nerve with her, the man
+has no show whatever. Nor the other woman. I’ll get him back all right.
+And he’ll forget you. That’s a man’s long suit.”
+“We’ll neither of us ever know, so it doesn’t matter. I shall never see
+him again. That is all that matters to me.”
+“And Valdobia?”
+“I shall marry him. I suppose--after a while.”
+“I don’t mind saying that he is much too good for you.”
+“Possibly. And he’ll love me the more.”
+“And shall you tell him of this little interlude?”
+“Certainly not.”
+“Well, I always have maintained that the woman who confessed anything
+to a man was a fool, but it certainly is a queer mix up.”
+“I don’t know that I should so much mind telling him, after all. Men
+are too practical to resent any but the literal infidelity. And he is
+the only person living that understands me. Gregory does not and never
+would care to. Why could not I have had this madness for the one man
+who is really fitted to be my mate--whose ideas of life are my own, who
+has so much the same order of mind? Why should I love Gregory Compton,
+a man I not only cannot marry, but with whom I never could find a real
+companionship. My God! Why? Why?”
+“There are several ways of getting ahead of life,” said Ida drily, “and
+one is not asking ‘Why’ too often. That’s just one of her little traps
+to keep you discontented. You and Gregory Compton! It certainly is
+funny. What did you talk about anyway?”
+Ora threw out her arms and laughed wildly. “Ores. Ores. Ores. I tried
+to interest him in many of the things that interested me. He didn’t
+even try to understand what I was driving at. One night I offered to
+read to him--I had a lively new volume of memoirs in mind--he asked
+if I had any work on copper. I read to him for three hours from a
+book called ‘The Copper Mines of the World,’ technicalities and all.
+Of course he had read it before, but it seemed to delight him. We
+literally had no common meeting ground but ores, but we loved each
+other madly. Oh, don’t tell me that it was mere passion!” she broke out
+as angrily as if Ida had interrupted her. “Valdobia is attractive in
+far more ways and better looking. Gregory has met many women.--If that
+were all we should have bored each other long since--we never could
+have held each other’s imaginations while apart.--I tell you it is some
+deep primary bond--something that older races perhaps could explain.
+Why should we meet at all in this life----”
+“I guess when we understand all the different brands of love we’ll
+vaccinate and be immune. Shut your teeth, Ora, and take your medicine.
+And for heaven’s sake let us get out of this damp hole. I’ll help you
+and Custer pack and we’ll go to Butte in the car I came out in. Have I
+got to go up that ladder!”
+“No, we’ll go over to the Perch mine and ring for the skip there. My
+engineer is not on duty during the ‘graveyard shift.’”
+XXV
+On the following morning Ida, having seen Ora on the train bound for
+Chicago, went at once to a public garage, rented the touring car she
+had used the night before, and was driven out to the mines. She walked
+up to the cabin on the crest of Perch of the Devil and, finding it
+empty, summoned a miner who was lounging near and bade him call Mr.
+Compton. The man asked to be allowed to use the telephone in the
+office, obtained connection with the second level of the mine, and
+announced in a few moments that the boss was on his way up.
+Ida, who had dropped wearily into a chair, merely nodded as Gregory
+entered. He was as pale as a dark man can be, and his voice when he
+spoke sounded as if he had been running.
+“What is it?” he demanded. “Has anything happened----”
+“To Ora? Nothing, except that she is on her way East and to Europe.
+Tired, no doubt, but quite well.”
+Gregory drew a short sigh of relief, and sat down before his table,
+shading his eyes with his hand. “Well?” he asked. “What is it?”
+“I haven’t come out here to make a scene, or even to reproach you. I
+believe that I should have the self-restraint to ignore the subject
+altogether if it were not for that man, Whalen. Some one must put an
+extinguisher on him at once and you are the one to do it. That is why
+I am obliged to tell you that I found out yesterday about you and Ora.
+I had begun to believe there must be some woman in the case but I had
+not the least suspicion of Ora. I not only believed her to be the soul
+of honour, but I thought she was really in love with the Marchese
+Valdobia, a Roman who has everything to offer that a woman of her type
+demands, and to marry whom she had demanded a divorce from Mark. She
+has been tacitly engaged to him ever since we left Europe.”
+Ida saw the muscles in Gregory’s long body stiffen as if he were about
+to spring, and his eyes glitter through the lattice of his fingers.
+But he made no comment, and after giving him time to assimilate her
+information, she added more gently:
+“Console yourself with the reflection that she would have thrown him
+over for you. But she knows now what a mistake she would have made. Ora
+is one of those atavistic Americans that are far more at home in Europe
+than in the new world. She has gone where she belongs and Valdobia is
+her man.”
+She paused again. He was still silent, and she continued less fluently:
+“Now I come to the unpleasant part for myself. To begin at the
+beginning: I made an enemy of little Whalen before I went abroad. He
+had the sublime impudence to kiss me one day, and I simply took him by
+the back of his neck and the seat of his pants and threw him out of the
+window. He has had it in for me ever since.”
+In spite of the various emotions raging within him, Gregory laughed
+aloud at the picture. The atmosphere felt clearer. Ida went on with
+more confidence:
+“Of course you know that Lord John Mowbray followed me here. He wanted
+me to get a divorce and marry him, as Valdobia had planned with Ora.
+I liked him well enough, but even if I had been free it never would
+have occurred to me to marry him, and no one knew better than he that
+I didn’t care a copper cent for him. His hope after he came here--a
+hope in which he was encouraged by Ora--was that, as you were so loudly
+indifferent, pride might drive me to leave you and make a brilliant
+marriage. Well, I was tempted for a moment. It was on the night of the
+day I had been down in the mine with you. I believed that I had given
+myself away absolutely, offered myself and been refused as casually as
+if I had been some woman of the streets; told you almost in so many
+words that I loved you and been invited with excruciating politeness to
+go to the devil.
+“Well, that night I nearly went off my head. I had a whole mind, for
+a few moments, to ring up Mowbray and tell him that I would get my
+freedom and leave the country for ever. But that passed. I couldn’t
+have done it, and I knew it, in spite of the blood pumping in my head.
+I went out for a walk, for I had smashed a few things already. Then the
+mad impulse came to me to call on Mowbray. I knew that I’d treat him
+no better than I had treated Whalen if he so much as tried to kiss me.
+But I wasn’t afraid. He was too keen on marrying me to take any risks.
+What I wanted was to do something real devilish--to be more elegant,
+something quite the antithesis of all that is _comme il faut_. So I
+went. Mowbray wasn’t there. He had gone to the dance at the Country
+Club. I sat down to wait for him and fell asleep. When I awoke it was
+after one o’clock and I was still alone. I can tell you I got out
+pretty quick. I had slept the blood out of my head and I felt like a
+fool. I bribed the Jap not to tell Mowbray or anyone else.
+“Well, the point of all this is--and the only reason I have told
+you--Whalen saw me go in and waited for me to come out. He believed
+that he had found his chance for revenge at last. No doubt he would
+have told you on the way to Helena, but he hasn’t the spunk of a road
+agent at the wrong end of a gun. So he took his tale to Ora when he got
+back.--But before I go any further I want you to say that you believe
+I had no wrong motive in going to Mowbray’s rooms. Of course a hundred
+people could testify that he did not leave the Country Club until three
+o’clock, but that is not the point with you.”
+“I believe you,” said Gregory. He was intensely interested.
+Ida drew a long sigh and the colour came back to her face. Her eyes,
+heavy with fatigue, sparkled. “Well! Whalen was all for drinking his
+cup of revenge down to the dregs. It wasn’t enough to spring a mine
+under me, he must see what I looked like when it blew up the first
+time. After he told Ora he posted into Butte and managed to get into
+my house unannounced--that maid has been fired. I was in the library
+on the other side of the room. The doorway was good enough for him. He
+told me. Some time I’ll tell you all I felt. After he had lit out with
+the Venus of Milo flying after him, I went stark mad. I made up what
+mind I had left to kill Ora and kill her quick.”
+“What?” Gregory sat up and stared at her, his eyes wide open. And,
+astounded as he was, the immortal vanity of man thrilled responsively
+to the reckless and destructive passions he had inspired in these two
+remarkable women.
+“I got a touring car and arrived at the foot of her hill--a little
+after eleven it was, I guess. There was a light in her living-room, and
+I made up my mind to wait until I was sure she was alone and in her
+bedroom. Then I intended to get in somehow or other and kill her with
+that stiletto she gave me in Genoa. It was a notion of hers that I had
+been one of the wicked dames of the Renaissance, and I just naturally
+took the hint. While I was waiting the light went out and almost
+immediately I saw her hurry down the path that led to her claim and go
+into her shaft house. I knew on the instant that she was going to you,
+and that she took that route to avoid being seen. My mind could grasp
+that much in spite of the fixed idea in it--that she was on her way to
+tell you Whalen’s story. This was true as I found out afterwards. She
+went that night, partly because she couldn’t keep it any longer, partly
+because she wanted to tell you when you were alone in your cabin at
+night and she could also bind you hand and foot with that Lorelei hair
+of hers. It takes the hyper-civilised super-refined Oras to stick at
+nothing when their primitive instincts loosen up.
+“Well--I went into the shaft house, and listened until I no longer
+could hear her on the ladder. Then I followed. Glory! Shall I ever
+forget going down that ladder? I felt as if every muscle in my body
+were being torn up by the roots; and I had to carry the stiletto
+between my teeth. And pitch dark. All my clothes in the way every step.
+It was enough to take the starch out of tragedy, and I guess it would
+have flattened me out if it hadn’t been just the one thing that could
+make me madder still.
+“I’ll give you the details of that scene some other time. I’m too
+tired now. It is enough to say that she had a pistol and made such an
+infernal racket with it--shooting at the roof--that something busted in
+my head and I came to. Then we had it out. She agreed to leave because
+she knew me too well to believe I had gone to Mowbray’s rooms for any
+horrid purpose, and he hadn’t been there anyway. I told her that if she
+told you it would have to be before me, and she knew that she couldn’t
+brazen it through. So I packed her and got her off this morning. That
+means that I had no sleep last night.”
+She stood up and Gregory rose also. “Now, there are two things more,”
+she said with no lack of decision in her voice, whatever her fatigue of
+body. “You must settle Whalen, and you must move to Butte and live in
+my house, even if you are only there once or twice a week. Whalen, the
+moment he discovers that Ora has gone, will run about Butte defaming
+me, or carry the story to the papers. It wouldn’t do me much good to
+prove that Mowbray wasn’t there. People like to believe the worst,
+and in time would forget that Mowbray had been at the Club on that
+particular night. My set might be all right. But the rest--and my
+servants--and Ruby and Pearl! They always use the word ‘bad,’ and, as
+Ora says, an intrigue is only decent in a foreign language. It gives me
+the horrors to think of it. But if we are seen together twice a week,
+and you are known to be living in the house, however often you must be
+absent, nobody will listen to a story that is not headed toward the
+divorce court.”
+“I’ll buy Whalen’s claim and tell him to get out of Montana. He’ll go!
+As for the rest of your programme--please be sure, Ida, that I stand
+ready to protect you now and always. You are not only my wife but an
+extraordinary woman, and I am very proud of you.”
+“Oh, the extraordinary woman hasn’t been born yet, in spite of the big
+fight the sex is putting up,” said Ida lightly, as they left the cabin
+and walked down the hill. “When women really are extraordinary they
+will be just as happy without men as they now want to be with them.
+They try with all their might to be hard, and they can ring outside
+like metal, but inside they are just one perpetual shriek for the right
+man to come along--that is all but a few hundred thousand tribadists.
+But they’ve made a beginning, and one day they’ll really be able to
+take men as incidentally as men take women. Then we’ll all be happy.
+Don’t you fool yourself that that’s what I’m aiming at, though. I’m the
+sort that hangs on to her man like grim death.”
+“You’re all right!” said Gregory, who, man-like, was automatically
+readjusting himself to the inevitable.
+He handed her into the tonneau of the car, and tucked the robe about
+her. She gave his hand a hearty friendly shake, for she was much too
+wise and too tired for sentiment. “Don’t you worry about Ora,” she
+said. “Custer is with her and she has the drawing-room, and is probably
+sound asleep at this moment. It must be very restful to get a tragic
+love affair off your chest.”
+And then the car rolled off and she fell asleep at once.
+PART III
+PART III
+They stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of Montana. Silver stars
+were winking dimly in the silver sky, clear save above the glittering
+peaks of the distant range, which reflected the blue of a bank of
+clouds above. And all the vast and snowy expanse was blue; and the snow
+on the pine trees of the forest.
+No one stirred in the two camps, not abroad at least; and even the
+shacks and larger buildings built with as little regard for beauty were
+transformed and glorified by the white splendour of winter. On the
+crest of Perch of the Devil was a long gracefully built bungalow, also
+heavily laden with snow, and between the posts of its verandah hung
+icicles, iridescent blue in the dawn.
+A small lawn had been cultivated, and they leaned over the gate of the
+fence that surrounded it, not wrapped in one buffalo robe, but in heavy
+automobile coats, their heads protected from the intense cold by fur
+caps. But they stood close together, and even a passing stranger would
+have known that there was harmony between them. Both were looking at
+the cold loveliness of the dawn and admiring it subconsciously, and
+both were thinking of other things. Gregory was visualising a ranch he
+had bought not long since near those mountains, and the wire gold but
+a few feet below the surface, found a fortnight ago while ditching. He
+had his gold mine at last, but it merely would hasten his grooming for
+the millionaire brotherhood, and had given him none of the exultant
+ecstasy he had dreamed of in the days before he had opened Perch of
+the Devil. The gold mine was not in his hill! Only the sharp, cool,
+calculating business wing of his brain appreciated it. The mine beneath
+his feet was still the object of his deep affections.
+And sometimes, down in the depths of that mine (never above ground), he
+sat alone for a few moments and thought of Ora. He had forced her out
+of his mind when she went out of his life, but nothing could dislodge
+her from his ivory tower, although in time to come she might gather
+dust for years on end. For months after she married Valdobia she seemed
+to have taken his memory to Rome with her; but she brought it back in
+time.
+In those rare moments when he peered through the windows of that inner
+temple, he, too, sometimes asked, “Why?” What had it all meant? It
+had been perfect love--yet so lamentably imperfect; not only because
+they were torn apart, but because they would not have found permanent
+happiness together. Between some subtle essence of their beings there
+was an indissoluble bond, but their minds were not in accord, and
+neither would have been adaptable save during that fluid period when
+even strong egos lose their bearings and float on that inevitable sea
+of many tides called Love; knowing that when it casts them on the shore
+whence they came, once more will they be as malleable as rock crystal.
+But what had it all meant?
+And his wife made him very happy. He found her increasingly desirable
+as a life companion. She adapted herself to every angle of his
+character while losing none of her own picturesque individuality; made
+no impossible exactions either on his soul or his time; was always
+beautiful to look at; and the most level-headed of his friends.
+Even men of less complicated egos have been able to love two women at
+once and survive.
+And Ida? She at least had what she wanted, she was a philosopher, and
+therefore as happy as may be. By constant manœuvring she saw more of
+her busy husband than falls to the lot of most American wives married
+to too successful men. She had made herself so necessary to him that he
+returned from his many absences almost as eager to see her as his mine.
+On these hurried trips she never accompanied him, not only because it
+was wise to let him miss her, and to think of her always in the home
+setting, but because they gave her the opportunity to retain her hold
+on Butte; to enjoy her beautiful house there and her many friends.
+Suddenly Gregory raised his head. Then he lifted the ear flap of his
+fur cap. High above there was a loud humming, as of the wind along
+telegraph wires, or the droning of many bees, or the strumming of an
+aerial harp. The month was March and the weather forty degrees below
+zero. The very sky, whose silver was growing dim, looked frosted, but a
+moment later Gregory felt a warm puff of air on his cheek.
+“The Chinook!” he said softly.
+Another puff touched them both lightly, then a long wave of warm air
+swept down and about them.
+“It’s chinooking, certainly,” said Ida, opening her fur coat and
+pushing back her cap. “I hope that means we’ve had the last of winter.”
+Again there was a long diving wave, almost hot in its contrast to the
+cold air rising from the ground, and still accompanied by that humming
+orchestra above. But in a few moments the hum had deepened into a roar
+down in the tree tops and about the corners of the buildings on the
+hill. The icicles fell from the eaves and lay shattered and dissolving
+on the porch, the snow was blown up in frosty clouds and melted as it
+fell.
+“It’s the last of winter, I guess,” said Gregory. “We’re not likely to
+have another long spell of cold. Spring has come. And so has daylight.
+Let’s go in, old girl.”
+THE END
+FOOTNOTES:
+[A] Pronounced Bute.
+[B] Plato dates the submergence of the last of Atlantis (the island of
+Poseidonis) about 9,000 years before the priests of Sais told its story
+to Solon, who lived 600 B.C. The Troano MSS. in the British Museum,
+written by the Mayas of Yucatan about 3500 B.C., assert that it took
+place 11560 B.C. The archaic records of India give the date of the
+fourth and final catastrophe that overwhelmed the remnant of the once
+vast continent (which Darwin and other naturalists claim must have
+extended from the American to the European continent to account for the
+migration of plants found in Miocene strata) as 9564 B.C.
\ No newline at end of file
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+It's no use; no use at all. The children won't let me stop telling tales
+of the Land of Oz. I know lots of other stories, and I hope to tell
+them, some time or another; but just now my loving tyrants won't allow
+me. They cry: "Oz--Oz! more about Oz, Mr. Baum!" and what can I do but
+obey their commands?
+This is Our Book--mine and the children's. For they have flooded me with
+thousands of suggestions in regard to it, and I have honestly tried to
+adopt as many of these suggestions as could be fitted into one story.
+After the wonderful success of "Ozma of Oz" it is evident that Dorothy
+has become a firm fixture in these Oz stories. The little ones all love
+Dorothy, and as one of my small friends aptly states: "It isn't a real
+Oz story without her." So here she is again, as sweet and gentle and
+innocent as ever, I hope, and the heroine of another strange adventure.
+There were many requests from my little correspondents for "more about
+the Wizard." It seems the jolly old fellow made hosts of friends in the
+first Oz book, in spite of the fact that he frankly acknowledged himself
+"a humbug." The children had heard how he mounted into the sky in a
+balloon and they were all waiting for him to come down again. So what
+could I do but tell "what happened to the Wizard afterward"? You will
+find him in these pages, just the same humbug Wizard as before.
+There was one thing the children demanded which I found it impossible to
+do in this present book: they bade me introduce Toto, Dorothy's little
+black dog, who has many friends among my readers. But you will see, when
+you begin to read the story, that Toto was in Kansas while Dorothy was
+in California, and so she had to start on her adventure without him. In
+this book Dorothy had to take her kitten with her instead of her dog;
+but in the next Oz book, if I am permitted to write one, I intend to
+tell a good deal about Toto's further history.
+Princess Ozma, whom I love as much as my readers do, is again introduced
+in this story, and so are several of our old friends of Oz. You will
+also become acquainted with Jim the Cab-Horse, the Nine Tiny Piglets,
+and Eureka, the Kitten. I am sorry the kitten was not as well behaved as
+she ought to have been; but perhaps she wasn't brought up properly.
+Dorothy found her, you see, and who her parents were nobody knows.
+I believe, my dears, that I am the proudest story-teller that ever
+lived. Many a time tears of pride and joy have stood in my eyes while I
+read the tender, loving, appealing letters that come to me in almost
+every mail from my little readers. To have pleased you, to have
+interested you, to have won your friendship, and perhaps your love,
+through my stories, is to my mind as great an achievement as to become
+President of the United States. Indeed, I would much rather be your
+story-teller, under these conditions, than to be the President. So you
+have helped me to fulfill my life's ambition, and I am more grateful to
+you, my dears, than I can express in words.
+I try to answer every letter of my young correspondents; yet sometimes
+there are so many letters that a little time must pass before you get
+your answer. But be patient, friends, for the answer will surely come,
+and by writing to me you more than repay me for the pleasant task of
+preparing these books. Besides, I am proud to acknowledge that the books
+are partly yours, for your suggestions often guide me in telling the
+stories, and I am sure they would not be half so good without your
+clever and thoughtful assistance.
+CHAPTER 1.
+THE EARTHQUAKE
+The train from 'Frisco was very late. It should have arrived at Hugson's
+siding at midnight, but it was already five o'clock and the gray dawn
+was breaking in the east when the little train slowly rumbled up to the
+open shed that served for the station-house. As it came to a stop the
+conductor called out in a loud voice:
+"Hugson's Siding!"
+At once a little girl rose from her seat and walked to the door of the
+car, carrying a wicker suit-case in one hand and a round bird-cage
+covered up with newspapers in the other, while a parasol was tucked
+under her arm. The conductor helped her off the car and then the
+engineer started his train again, so that it puffed and groaned and
+moved slowly away up the track. The reason he was so late was because
+all through the night there were times when the solid earth shook and
+trembled under him, and the engineer was afraid that at any moment the
+rails might spread apart and an accident happen to his passengers. So he
+moved the cars slowly and with caution.
+The little girl stood still to watch until the train had disappeared
+around a curve; then she turned to see where she was.
+The shed at Hugson's Siding was bare save for an old wooden bench, and
+did not look very inviting. As she peered through the soft gray light
+not a house of any sort was visible near the station, nor was any person
+in sight; but after a while the child discovered a horse and buggy
+standing near a group of trees a short distance away. She walked toward
+it and found the horse tied to a tree and standing motionless, with its
+head hanging down almost to the ground. It was a big horse, tall and
+bony, with long legs and large knees and feet. She could count his ribs
+easily where they showed through the skin of his body, and his head was
+long and seemed altogether too big for him, as if it did not fit. His
+tail was short and scraggly, and his harness had been broken in many
+places and fastened together again with cords and bits of wire. The
+buggy seemed almost new, for it had a shiny top and side curtains.
+Getting around in front, so that she could look inside, the girl saw a
+boy curled up on the seat, fast asleep.
+She set down the bird-cage and poked the boy with her parasol. Presently
+he woke up, rose to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes briskly.
+"Hello!" he said, seeing her, "are you Dorothy Gale?"
+"Yes," she answered, looking gravely at his tousled hair and blinking
+gray eyes. "Have you come to take me to Hugson's Ranch?"
+"Of course," he answered. "Train in?"
+"I couldn't be here if it wasn't," she said.
+He laughed at that, and his laugh was merry and frank. Jumping out of
+the buggy he put Dorothy's suit-case under the seat and her bird-cage on
+the floor in front.
+"Canary-birds?" he asked.
+"Oh, no; it's just Eureka, my kitten. I thought that was the best way to
+carry her."
+The boy nodded.
+"Eureka's a funny name for a cat," he remarked.
+"I named my kitten that because I found it," she explained. "Uncle Henry
+says 'Eureka' means 'I have found it.'"
+"All right; hop in."
+She climbed into the buggy and he followed her. Then the boy picked up
+the reins, shook them, and said "Gid-dap!"
+The horse did not stir. Dorothy thought he just wiggled one of his
+drooping ears, but that was all.
+"Gid-dap!" called the boy, again.
+The horse stood still.
+"Perhaps," said Dorothy, "if you untied him, he would go."
+The boy laughed cheerfully and jumped out.
+"Guess I'm half asleep yet," he said, untying the horse. "But Jim knows
+his business all right--don't you, Jim?" patting the long nose of the
+animal.
+Then he got into the buggy again and took the reins, and the horse at
+once backed away from the tree, turned slowly around, and began to trot
+down the sandy road which was just visible in the dim light.
+"Thought that train would never come," observed the boy. "I've waited at
+that station for five hours."
+"We had a lot of earthquakes," said Dorothy. "Didn't you feel the ground
+shake?"
+"Yes; but we're used to such things in California," he replied. "They
+don't scare us much."
+"The conductor said it was the worst quake he ever knew."
+"Did he? Then it must have happened while I was asleep," he said,
+thoughtfully.
+"How is Uncle Henry?" she enquired, after a pause during which the horse
+continued to trot with long, regular strides.
+"He's pretty well. He and Uncle Hugson have been having a fine visit."
+"Is Mr. Hugson your uncle?" she asked.
+"Yes. Uncle Bill Hugson married your Uncle Henry's wife's sister; so we
+must be second cousins," said the boy, in an amused tone. "I work for
+Uncle Bill on his ranch, and he pays me six dollars a month and my
+board."
+"Isn't that a great deal?" she asked, doubtfully.
+"Why, it's a great deal for Uncle Hugson, but not for me. I'm a splendid
+worker. I work as well as I sleep," he added, with a laugh.
+"What is your name?" asked Dorothy, thinking she liked the boy's manner
+and the cheery tone of his voice.
+"Not a very pretty one," he answered, as if a little ashamed. "My whole
+name is Zebediah; but folks just call me 'Zeb.' You've been to
+Australia, haven't you?"
+"Yes; with Uncle Henry," she answered. "We got to San Francisco a week
+ago, and Uncle Henry went right on to Hugson's Ranch for a visit while I
+stayed a few days in the city with some friends we had met."
+"How long will you be with us?" he asked.
+"Only a day. Tomorrow Uncle Henry and I must start back for Kansas.
+We've been away for a long time, you know, and so we're anxious to get
+home again."
+The boy flicked the big, boney horse with his whip and looked
+thoughtful. Then he started to say something to his little companion,
+but before he could speak the buggy began to sway dangerously from side
+to side and the earth seemed to rise up before them. Next minute there
+was a roar and a sharp crash, and at her side Dorothy saw the ground
+open in a wide crack and then come together again.
+"Goodness!" she cried, grasping the iron rail of the seat. "What was
+that?"
+"That was an awful big quake," replied Zeb, with a white face. "It
+almost got us that time, Dorothy."
+The horse had stopped short, and stood firm as a rock. Zeb shook the
+reins and urged him to go, but Jim was stubborn. Then the boy cracked
+his whip and touched the animal's flanks with it, and after a low moan
+of protest Jim stepped slowly along the road.
+Neither the boy nor the girl spoke again for some minutes. There was a
+breath of danger in the very air, and every few moments the earth would
+shake violently. Jim's ears were standing erect upon his head and every
+muscle of his big body was tense as he trotted toward home. He was not
+going very fast, but on his flanks specks of foam began to appear and at
+times he would tremble like a leaf.
+The sky had grown darker again and the wind made queer sobbing sounds as
+it swept over the valley.
+Suddenly there was a rending, tearing sound, and the earth split into
+another great crack just beneath the spot where the horse was standing.
+With a wild neigh of terror the animal fell bodily into the pit, drawing
+the buggy and its occupants after him.
+Dorothy grabbed fast hold of the buggy top and the boy did the same. The
+sudden rush into space confused them so that they could not think.
+Blackness engulfed them on every side, and in breathless silence they
+waited for the fall to end and crush them against jagged rocks or for
+the earth to close in on them again and bury them forever in its
+dreadful depths.
+The horrible sensation of falling, the darkness and the terrifying
+noises, proved more than Dorothy could endure and for a few moments the
+little girl lost consciousness. Zeb, being a boy, did not faint, but he
+was badly frightened, and clung to the buggy seat with a tight grip,
+expecting every moment would be his last.
+
+CHAPTER 2.
+THE GLASS CITY
+When Dorothy recovered her senses they were still falling, but not so
+fast. The top of the buggy caught the air like a parachute or an
+umbrella filled with wind, and held them back so that they floated
+downward with a gentle motion that was not so very disagreeable to bear.
+The worst thing was their terror of reaching the bottom of this great
+crack in the earth, and the natural fear that sudden death was about to
+overtake them at any moment. Crash after crash echoed far above their
+heads, as the earth came together where it had split, and stones and
+chunks of clay rattled around them on every side. These they could not
+see, but they could feel them pelting the buggy top, and Jim screamed
+almost like a human being when a stone overtook him and struck his
+boney body. They did not really hurt the poor horse, because everything
+was falling together; only the stones and rubbish fell faster than the
+horse and buggy, which were held back by the pressure of the air, so
+that the terrified animal was actually more frightened than he was
+injured.
+How long this state of things continued Dorothy could not even guess,
+she was so greatly bewildered. But bye and bye, as she stared ahead into
+the black chasm with a beating heart, she began to dimly see the form of
+the horse Jim--his head up in the air, his ears erect and his long legs
+sprawling in every direction as he tumbled through space. Also, turning
+her head, she found that she could see the boy beside her, who had until
+now remained as still and silent as she herself.
+Dorothy sighed and commenced to breathe easier. She began to realize
+that death was not in store for her, after all, but that she had merely
+started upon another adventure, which promised to be just as queer and
+unusual as were those she had before encountered.
+With this thought in mind the girl took heart and leaned her head over
+the side of the buggy to see where the strange light was coming from.
+Far below her she found six great glowing balls suspended in the air.
+The central and largest one was white, and reminded her of the sun.
+Around it were arranged, like the five points of a star, the other five
+brilliant balls; one being rose colored, one violet, one yellow, one
+blue and one orange. This splendid group of colored suns sent rays
+darting in every direction, and as the horse and buggy--with Dorothy and
+Zeb--sank steadily downward and came nearer to the lights, the rays
+began to take on all the delicate tintings of a rainbow, growing more
+and more distinct every moment until all the space was brilliantly
+illuminated.
+Dorothy was too dazed to say much, but she watched one of Jim's big ears
+turn to violet and the other to rose, and wondered that his tail should
+be yellow and his body striped with blue and orange like the stripes of
+a zebra. Then she looked at Zeb, whose face was blue and whose hair was
+pink, and gave a little laugh that sounded a bit nervous.
+"Isn't it funny?" she said.
+The boy was startled and his eyes were big. Dorothy had a green streak
+through the center of her face where the blue and yellow lights came
+together, and her appearance seemed to add to his fright.
+"I--I don't s-s-see any-thing funny--'bout it!" he stammered.
+Just then the buggy tipped slowly over upon its side, the body of the
+horse tipping also. But they continued to fall, all together, and the
+boy and girl had no difficulty in remaining upon the seat, just as they
+were before. Then they turned bottom side up, and continued to roll
+slowly over until they were right side up again. During this time Jim
+struggled frantically, all his legs kicking the air; but on finding
+himself in his former position the horse said, in a relieved tone of
+voice:
+"Well, that's better!"
+Dorothy and Zeb looked at one another in wonder.
+"Can your horse talk?" she asked.
+"Never knew him to, before," replied the boy.
+"Those were the first words I ever said," called out the horse, who had
+overheard them, "and I can't explain why I happened to speak then. This
+is a nice scrape you've got me into, isn't it?"
+"As for that, we are in the same scrape ourselves," answered Dorothy,
+cheerfully. "But never mind; something will happen pretty soon."
+"Of course," growled the horse; "and then we shall be sorry it
+happened."
+Zeb gave a shiver. All this was so terrible and unreal that he could not
+understand it at all, and so had good reason to be afraid.
+Swiftly they drew near to the flaming colored suns, and passed close
+beside them. The light was then so bright that it dazzled their eyes,
+and they covered their faces with their hands to escape being blinded.
+There was no heat in the colored suns, however, and after they had
+passed below them the top of the buggy shut out many of the piercing
+rays so that the boy and girl could open their eyes again.
+"We've got to come to the bottom some time," remarked Zeb, with a deep
+sigh. "We can't keep falling forever, you know."
+"Of course not," said Dorothy. "We are somewhere in the middle of the
+earth, and the chances are we'll reach the other side of it before long.
+But it's a big hollow, isn't it?"
+"Awful big!" answered the boy.
+"We're coming to something now," announced the horse.
+At this they both put their heads over the side of the buggy and looked
+down. Yes; there was land below them; and not so very far away, either.
+But they were floating very, very slowly--so slowly that it could no
+longer be called a fall--and the children had ample time to take heart
+and look about them.
+They saw a landscape with mountains and plains, lakes and rivers, very
+like those upon the earth's surface; but all the scene was splendidly
+colored by the variegated lights from the six suns. Here and there were
+groups of houses that seemed made of clear glass, because they sparkled
+so brightly.
+"I'm sure we are in no danger," said Dorothy, in a sober voice. "We are
+falling so slowly that we can't be dashed to pieces when we land, and
+this country that we are coming to seems quite pretty."
+"We'll never get home again, though!" declared Zeb, with a groan.
+"Oh, I'm not so sure of that," replied the girl. "But don't let us worry
+over such things, Zeb; we can't help ourselves just now, you know, and
+I've always been told it's foolish to borrow trouble."
+The boy became silent, having no reply to so sensible a speech, and soon
+both were fully occupied in staring at the strange scenes spread out
+below them. They seemed to be falling right into the middle of a big
+city which had many tall buildings with glass domes and sharp-pointed
+spires. These spires were like great spear-points, and if they tumbled
+upon one of them they were likely to suffer serious injury.
+Jim the horse had seen these spires, also, and his ears stood straight
+up with fear, while Dorothy and Zeb held their breaths in suspense. But
+no; they floated gently down upon a broad, flat roof, and came to a stop
+at last.
+When Jim felt something firm under his feet the poor beast's legs
+trembled so much that he could hardly stand; but Zeb at once leaped out
+of the buggy to the roof, and he was so awkward and hasty that he kicked
+over Dorothy's birdcage, which rolled out upon the roof so that the
+bottom came off. At once a pink kitten crept out of the upset cage, sat
+down upon the glass roof, and yawned and blinked its round eyes.
+"Oh," said Dorothy. "There's Eureka."
+"First time I ever saw a pink cat," said Zeb.
+"Eureka isn't pink; she's white. It's this queer light that gives her
+that color."
+"Where's my milk?" asked the kitten, looking up into Dorothy's face.
+"I'm 'most starved to death."
+"Oh, Eureka! Can you talk?"
+"Talk! Am I talking? Good gracious, I believe I am. Isn't it funny?"
+asked the kitten.
+"It's all wrong," said Zeb, gravely. "Animals ought not to talk. But
+even old Jim has been saying things since we had our accident."
+"I can't see that it's wrong," remarked Jim, in his gruff tones. "At
+least, it isn't as wrong as some other things. What's going to become of
+us now?"
+"I don't know," answered the boy, looking around him curiously.
+The houses of the city were all made of glass, so clear and transparent
+that one could look through the walls as easily as though a window.
+Dorothy saw, underneath the roof on which she stood, several rooms used
+for rest chambers, and even thought she could make out a number of queer
+forms huddled into the corners of these rooms.
+The roof beside them had a great hole smashed through it, and pieces of
+glass were lying scattered in every direction. A near by steeple had
+been broken off short and the fragments lay heaped beside it. Other
+buildings were cracked in places or had corners chipped off from them;
+but they must have been very beautiful before these accidents had
+happened to mar their perfection. The rainbow tints from the colored
+suns fell upon the glass city softly and gave to the buildings many
+delicate, shifting hues which were very pretty to see.
+But not a sound had broken the stillness since the strangers had
+arrived, except that of their own voices. They began to wonder if there
+were no people to inhabit this magnificent city of the inner world.
+Suddenly a man appeared through a hole in the roof next to the one they
+were on and stepped into plain view. He was not a very large man, but
+was well formed and had a beautiful face--calm and serene as the face of
+a fine portrait. His clothing fitted his form snugly and was gorgeously
+colored in brilliant shades of green, which varied as the sunbeams
+touched them but was not wholly influenced by the solar rays.
+The man had taken a step or two across the glass roof before he noticed
+the presence of the strangers; but then he stopped abruptly. There was
+no expression of either fear or surprise upon his tranquil face, yet he
+must have been both astonished and afraid; for after his eyes had rested
+upon the ungainly form of the horse for a moment he walked rapidly to
+the furthest edge of the roof, his head turned back over his shoulder to
+gaze at the strange animal.
+"Look out!" cried Dorothy, who noticed that the beautiful man did not
+look where he was going; "be careful, or you'll fall off!"
+But he paid no attention to her warning. He reached the edge of the tall
+roof, stepped one foot out into the air, and walked into space as calmly
+as if he were on firm ground.
+The girl, greatly astonished, ran to lean over the edge of the roof, and
+saw the man walking rapidly through the air toward the ground. Soon he
+reached the street and disappeared through a glass doorway into one of
+the glass buildings.
+"How strange!" she exclaimed, drawing a long breath.
+"Yes; but it's lots of fun, if it _is_ strange," remarked the small
+voice of the kitten, and Dorothy turned to find her pet walking in the
+air a foot or so away from the edge of the roof.
+"Come back, Eureka!" she called, in distress, "you'll certainly be
+killed."
+"I have nine lives," said the kitten, purring softly as it walked around
+in a circle and then came back to the roof; "but I can't lose even one
+of them by falling in this country, because I really couldn't manage to
+fall if I wanted to."
+"Does the air bear up your weight?" asked the girl.
+"Of course; can't you see?" and again the kitten wandered into the air
+and back to the edge of the roof.
+"It's wonderful!" said Dorothy.
+"Suppose we let Eureka go down to the street and get some one to help
+us," suggested Zeb, who had been even more amazed than Dorothy at these
+strange happenings.
+"Perhaps we can walk on the air ourselves," replied the girl.
+Zeb drew back with a shiver.
+"I wouldn't dare try," he said.
+"May be Jim will go," continued Dorothy, looking at the horse.
+"And may be he won't!" answered Jim. "I've tumbled through the air long
+enough to make me contented on this roof."
+"But we didn't tumble to the roof," said the girl; "by the time we
+reached here we were floating very slowly, and I'm almost sure we could
+float down to the street without getting hurt. Eureka walks on the air
+all right."
+"Eureka weighs only about half a pound," replied the horse, in a
+scornful tone, "while I weigh about half a ton."
+"You don't weigh as much as you ought to, Jim," remarked the girl,
+shaking her head as she looked at the animal. "You're dreadfully
+skinny."
+"Oh, well; I'm old," said the horse, hanging his head despondently, "and
+I've had lots of trouble in my day, little one. For a good many years I
+drew a public cab in Chicago, and that's enough to make anyone skinny."
+"He eats enough to get fat, I'm sure," said the boy, gravely.
+"Do I? Can you remember any breakfast that I've had today?" growled Jim,
+as if he resented Zeb's speech.
+"None of us has had breakfast," said the boy; "and in a time of danger
+like this it's foolish to talk about eating."
+"Nothing is more dangerous than being without food," declared the horse,
+with a sniff at the rebuke of his young master; "and just at present no
+one can tell whether there are any oats in this queer country or not. If
+there are, they are liable to be glass oats!"
+"Oh, no!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I can see plenty of nice gardens and
+fields down below us, at the edge of this city. But I wish we could find
+a way to get to the ground."
+"Why don't you walk down?" asked Eureka. "I'm as hungry as the horse is,
+and I want my milk."
+"Will you try it, Zeb" asked the girl, turning to her companion.
+Zeb hesitated. He was still pale and frightened, for this dreadful
+adventure had upset him and made him nervous and worried. But he did not
+wish the little girl to think him a coward, so he advanced slowly to the
+edge of the roof.
+Dorothy stretched out a hand to him and Zeb put one foot out and let it
+rest in the air a little over the edge of the roof. It seemed firm
+enough to walk upon, so he took courage and put out the other foot.
+Dorothy kept hold of his hand and followed him, and soon they were both
+walking through the air, with the kitten frisking beside them.
+"Come on, Jim!" called the boy. "It's all right."
+Jim had crept to the edge of the roof to look over, and being a sensible
+horse and quite experienced, he made up his mind that he could go where
+the others did. So, with a snort and a neigh and a whisk of his short
+tail he trotted off the roof into the air and at once began floating
+downward to the street. His great weight made him fall faster than the
+children walked, and he passed them on the way down; but when he came to
+the glass pavement he alighted upon it so softly that he was not even
+jarred.
+"Well, well!" said Dorothy, drawing a long breath, "What a strange
+country this is."
+People began to come out of the glass doors to look at the new arrivals,
+and pretty soon quite a crowd had assembled. There were men and women,
+but no children at all, and the folks were all beautifully formed and
+attractively dressed and had wonderfully handsome faces. There was not
+an ugly person in all the throng, yet Dorothy was not especially pleased
+by the appearance of these people because their features had no more
+expression than the faces of dolls. They did not smile nor did they
+frown, or show either fear or surprise or curiosity or friendliness.
+They simply stared at the strangers, paying most attention to Jim and
+Eureka, for they had never before seen either a horse or a cat and the
+children bore an outward resemblance to themselves.
+Pretty soon a man joined the group who wore a glistening star in the
+dark hair just over his forehead. He seemed to be a person of authority,
+for the others pressed back to give him room. After turning his composed
+eyes first upon the animals and then upon the children he said to Zeb,
+who was a little taller than Dorothy:
+"Tell me, intruder, was it you who caused the Rain of Stones?"
+For a moment the boy did not know what he meant by this question. Then,
+remembering the stones that had fallen with them and passed them long
+before they had reached this place, he answered:
+"No, sir; we didn't cause anything. It was the earthquake."
+The man with the star stood for a time quietly thinking over this
+speech. Then he asked:
+"What is an earthquake?"
+"I don't know," said Zeb, who was still confused. But Dorothy, seeing
+his perplexity, answered:
+"It's a shaking of the earth. In this quake a big crack opened and we
+fell through--horse and buggy, and all--and the stones got loose and
+came down with us."
+The man with the star regarded her with his calm, expressionless eyes.
+"The Rain of Stones has done much damage to our city," he said; "and we
+shall hold you responsible for it unless you can prove your innocence."
+"How can we do that?" asked the girl.
+"That I am not prepared to say. It is your affair, not mine. You must
+go to the House of the Sorcerer, who will soon discover the truth."
+"Where is the House of the Sorcerer?" the girl enquired.
+"I will lead you to it. Come!"
+He turned and walked down the street, and after a moment's hesitation
+Dorothy caught Eureka in her arms and climbed into the buggy. The boy
+took his seat beside her and said: "Gid-dap, Jim."
+As the horse ambled along, drawing the buggy, the people of the glass
+city made way for them and formed a procession in their rear. Slowly
+they moved down one street and up another, turning first this way and
+then that, until they came to an open square in the center of which was
+a big glass palace having a central dome and four tall spires on each
+corner.
+CHAPTER 3.
+THE ARRIVAL OF THE WIZARD
+The doorway of the glass palace was quite big enough for the horse and
+buggy to enter, so Zeb drove straight through it and the children found
+themselves in a lofty hall that was very beautiful. The people at once
+followed and formed a circle around the sides of the spacious room,
+leaving the horse and buggy and the man with the star to occupy the
+center of the hall.
+"Come to us, oh, Gwig!" called the man, in a loud voice.
+Instantly a cloud of smoke appeared and rolled over the floor; then it
+slowly spread and ascended into the dome, disclosing a strange personage
+seated upon a glass throne just before Jim's nose. He was formed just as
+were the other inhabitants of this land and his clothing only differed
+from theirs in being bright yellow. But he had no hair at all, and all
+over his bald head and face and upon the backs of his hands grew sharp
+thorns like those found on the branches of rose-bushes. There was even a
+thorn upon the tip of his nose and he looked so funny that Dorothy
+laughed when she saw him.
+The Sorcerer, hearing the laugh, looked toward the little girl with
+cold, cruel eyes, and his glance made her grow sober in an instant.
+"Why have you dared to intrude your unwelcome persons into the secluded
+Land of the Mangaboos?" he asked, sternly.
+"'Cause we couldn't help it," said Dorothy.
+"Why did you wickedly and viciously send the Rain of Stones to crack and
+break our houses?" he continued.
+"We didn't," declared the girl.
+"Prove it!" cried the Sorcerer.
+"We don't have to prove it," answered Dorothy, indignantly. "If you had
+any sense at all you'd known it was the earthquake."
+"We only know that yesterday came a Rain of Stones upon us, which did
+much damage and injured some of our people. Today came another Rain of
+Stones, and soon after it you appeared among us."
+"By the way," said the man with the star, looking steadily at the
+Sorcerer, "you told us yesterday that there would not be a second Rain
+of Stones. Yet one has just occurred that was even worse than the first.
+What is your sorcery good for if it cannot tell us the truth?"
+"My sorcery does tell the truth!" declared the thorn-covered man. "I
+said there would be but one Rain of Stones. This second one was a Rain
+of People-and-Horse-and-Buggy. And some stones came with them."
+"Will there be any more Rains?" asked the man with the star.
+"No, my Prince."
+"Neither stones nor people?"
+"No, my Prince."
+"Are you sure?"
+"Quite sure, my Prince. My sorcery tells me so."
+Just then a man came running into the hall and addressed the Prince
+after making a low bow.
+"More wonders in the air, my Lord," said he.
+Immediately the Prince and all of his people flocked out of the hall
+into the street, that they might see what was about to happen. Dorothy
+and Zeb jumped out of the buggy and ran after them, but the Sorcerer
+remained calmly in his throne.
+Far up in the air was an object that looked like a balloon. It was not
+so high as the glowing star of the six colored suns, but was descending
+slowly through the air--so slowly that at first it scarcely seemed to
+move.
+The throng stood still and waited. It was all they could do, for to go
+away and leave that strange sight was impossible; nor could they hurry
+its fall in any way. The earth children were not noticed, being so near
+the average size of the Mangaboos, and the horse had remained in the
+House of the Sorcerer, with Eureka curled up asleep on the seat of the
+buggy.
+Gradually the balloon grew bigger, which was proof that it was settling
+down upon the Land of the Mangaboos. Dorothy was surprised to find how
+patient the people were, for her own little heart was beating rapidly
+with excitement. A balloon meant to her some other arrival from the
+surface of the earth, and she hoped it would be some one able to assist
+her and Zeb out of their difficulties.
+In an hour the balloon had come near enough for her to see a basket
+suspended below it; in two hours she could see a head looking over the
+side of the basket; in three hours the big balloon settled slowly into
+the great square in which they stood and came to rest on the glass
+pavement.
+Then a little man jumped out of the basket, took off his tall hat, and
+bowed very gracefully to the crowd of Mangaboos around him. He was quite
+an old little man, and his head was long and entirely bald.
+"Why," cried Dorothy, in amazement, "it's Oz!"
+The little man looked toward her and seemed as much surprised as she
+was. But he smiled and bowed as he answered:
+"Yes, my dear; I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Eh? And you are little
+Dorothy, from Kansas. I remember you very well."
+"Who did you say it was?" whispered Zeb to the girl.
+"It's the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Haven't you heard of him?"
+Just then the man with the star came and stood before the Wizard.
+"Sir," said he, "why are you here, in the Land of the Mangaboos?"
+"Didn't know what land it was, my son," returned the other, with a
+pleasant smile; "and, to be honest, I didn't mean to visit you when I
+started out. I live on top of the earth, your honor, which is far better
+than living inside it; but yesterday I went up in a balloon, and when I
+came down I fell into a big crack in the earth, caused by an earthquake.
+I had let so much gas out of my balloon that I could not rise again,
+and in a few minutes the earth closed over my head. So I continued to
+descend until I reached this place, and if you will show me a way to get
+out of it, I'll go with pleasure. Sorry to have troubled you; but it
+couldn't be helped."
+The Prince had listened with attention. Said he:
+"This child, who is from the crust of the earth, like yourself, called
+you a Wizard. Is not a Wizard something like a Sorcerer?"
+"It's better," replied Oz, promptly. "One Wizard is worth three
+Sorcerers."
+"Ah, you shall prove that," said the Prince. "We Mangaboos have, at the
+present time, one of the most wonderful Sorcerers that ever was picked
+from a bush; but he sometimes makes mistakes. Do you ever make
+mistakes?"
+"Never!" declared the Wizard, boldly.
+"Oh, Oz!" said Dorothy; "you made a lot of mistakes when you were in the
+marvelous Land of Oz."
+"Nonsense!" said the little man, turning red--although just then a ray
+of violet sunlight was on his round face.
+"Come with me," said the Prince to him. "I wish you to meet our
+Sorcerer."
+The Wizard did not like this invitation, but he could not refuse to
+accept it. So he followed the Prince into the great domed hall, and
+Dorothy and Zeb came after them, while the throng of people trooped in
+also.
+There sat the thorny Sorcerer in his chair of state, and when the Wizard
+saw him he began to laugh, uttering comical little chuckles.
+"What an absurd creature!" he exclaimed.
+"He may look absurd," said the Prince, in his quiet voice; "but he is an
+excellent Sorcerer. The only fault I find with him is that he is so
+often wrong."
+"I am never wrong," answered the Sorcerer.
+"Only a short time ago you told me there would be no more Rain of Stones
+or of People," said the Prince.
+"Well, what then?"
+"Here is another person descended from the air to prove you were wrong."
+"One person cannot be called 'people,'" said the Sorcerer. "If two
+should come out of the sky you might with justice say I was wrong; but
+unless more than this one appears I will hold that I was right."
+"Very clever," said the Wizard, nodding his head as if pleased. "I am
+delighted to find humbugs inside the earth, just the same as on top of
+it. Were you ever with a circus, brother?"
+"No," said the Sorcerer.
+"You ought to join one," declared the little man seriously. "I belong to
+Bailum & Barney's Great Consolidated Shows--three rings in one tent and
+a menagerie on the side. It's a fine aggregation, I assure you."
+"What do you do?" asked the Sorcerer.
+"I go up in a balloon, usually, to draw the crowds to the circus. But
+I've just had the bad luck to come out of the sky, skip the solid earth,
+and land lower down than I intended. But never mind. It isn't everybody
+who gets a chance to see your Land of the Gabazoos."
+"Mangaboos," said the Sorcerer, correcting him. "If you are a Wizard you
+ought to be able to call people by their right names."
+"Oh, I'm a Wizard; you may be sure of that. Just as good a Wizard as you
+are a Sorcerer."
+"That remains to be seen," said the other.
+"If you are able to prove that you are better," said the Prince to the
+little man, "I will make you the Chief Wizard of this domain.
+Otherwise--"
+"What will happen otherwise?" asked the Wizard.
+"I will stop you from living, and forbid you to be planted," returned
+the Prince.
+"That does not sound especially pleasant," said the little man, looking
+at the one with the star uneasily. "But never mind. I'll beat Old
+Prickly, all right."
+"My name is Gwig," said the Sorcerer, turning his heartless, cruel eyes
+upon his rival. "Let me see you equal the sorcery I am about to
+perform."
+He waved a thorny hand and at once the tinkling of bells was heard,
+playing sweet music. Yet, look where she would, Dorothy could discover
+no bells at all in the great glass hall.
+The Mangaboo people listened, but showed no great interest. It was one
+of the things Gwig usually did to prove he was a sorcerer.
+Now was the Wizard's turn, so he smiled upon the assemblage and asked:
+"Will somebody kindly loan me a hat?"
+No one did, because the Mangaboos did not wear hats, and Zeb had lost
+his, somehow, in his flight through the air.
+"Ahem!" said the Wizard, "will somebody please loan me a handkerchief?"
+But they had no handkerchiefs, either.
+"Very good," remarked the Wizard. "I'll use my own hat, if you please.
+Now, good people, observe me carefully. You see, there is nothing up my
+sleeve and nothing concealed about my person. Also, my hat is quite
+empty." He took off his hat and held it upside down, shaking it
+briskly.
+"Let me see it," said the Sorcerer.
+He took the hat and examined it carefully, returning it afterward to the
+Wizard.
+"Now," said the little man, "I will create something out of nothing."
+He placed the hat upon the glass floor, made a pass with his hand, and
+then removed the hat, displaying a little white piglet no bigger than a
+mouse, which began to run around here and there and to grunt and squeal
+in a tiny, shrill voice.
+The people watched it intently, for they had never seen a pig before,
+big or little. The Wizard reached out, caught the wee creature in his
+hand, and holding its head between one thumb and finger and its tail
+between the other thumb and finger he pulled it apart, each of the two
+parts becoming a whole and separate piglet in an instant.
+He placed one upon the floor, so that it could run around, and pulled
+apart the other, making three piglets in all; and then one of these was
+pulled apart, making four piglets. The Wizard continued this surprising
+performance until nine tiny piglets were running about at his feet, all
+squealing and grunting in a very comical way.
+"Now," said the Wizard of Oz, "having created something from nothing, I
+will make something nothing again."
+With this he caught up two of the piglets and pushed them together, so
+that the two were one. Then he caught up another piglet and pushed it
+into the first, where it disappeared. And so, one by one, the nine tiny
+piglets were pushed together until but a single one of the creatures
+remained. This the Wizard placed underneath his hat and made a mystic
+sign above it. When he removed his hat the last piglet had disappeared
+entirely.
+The little man gave a bow to the silent throng that had watched him, and
+then the Prince said, in his cold, calm voice:
+"You are indeed a wonderful Wizard, and your powers are greater than
+those of my Sorcerer."
+"He will not be a wonderful Wizard long," remarked Gwig.
+"Why not?" enquired the Wizard.
+"Because I am going to stop your breath," was the reply. "I perceive
+that you are curiously constructed, and that if you cannot breathe you
+cannot keep alive."
+The little man looked troubled.
+"How long will it take you to stop my breath?" he asked.
+"About five minutes. I'm going to begin now. Watch me carefully."
+He began making queer signs and passes toward the Wizard; but the little
+man did not watch him long. Instead, he drew a leathern case from his
+pocket and took from it several sharp knives, which he joined together,
+one after another, until they made a long sword. By the time he had
+attached a handle to this sword he was having much trouble to breathe,
+as the charm of the Sorcerer was beginning to take effect.
+So the Wizard lost no more time, but leaping forward he raised the sharp
+sword, whirled it once or twice around his head, and then gave a mighty
+stroke that cut the body of the Sorcerer exactly in two.
+Dorothy screamed and expected to see a terrible sight; but as the two
+halves of the Sorcerer fell apart on the floor she saw that he had no
+bones or blood inside of him at all, and that the place where he was cut
+looked much like a sliced turnip or potato.
+"Why, he's vegetable!" cried the Wizard, astonished.
+"Of course," said the Prince. "We are all vegetable, in this country.
+Are you not vegetable, also?"
+"No," answered the Wizard. "People on top of the earth are all meat.
+Will your Sorcerer die?"
+"Certainly, sir. He is really dead now, and will wither very quickly. So
+we must plant him at once, that other Sorcerers may grow upon his bush,"
+continued the Prince.
+"What do you mean by that?" asked the little Wizard, greatly puzzled.
+"If you will accompany me to our public gardens," replied the Prince, "I
+will explain to you much better than I can here the mysteries of our
+Vegetable Kingdom."
+CHAPTER 4.
+THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM
+After the Wizard had wiped the dampness from his sword and taken it
+apart and put the pieces into their leathern case again, the man with
+the star ordered some of his people to carry the two halves of the
+Sorcerer to the public gardens.
+Jim pricked up his ears when he heard they were going to the gardens,
+and wanted to join the party, thinking he might find something proper to
+eat; so Zeb put down the top of the buggy and invited the Wizard to ride
+with them. The seat was amply wide enough for the little man and the two
+children, and when Jim started to leave the hall the kitten jumped upon
+his back and sat there quite contentedly.
+So the procession moved through the streets, the bearers of the Sorcerer
+first, the Prince next, then Jim drawing the buggy with the strangers
+inside of it, and last the crowd of vegetable people who had no hearts
+and could neither smile nor frown.
+The glass city had several fine streets, for a good many people lived
+there; but when the procession had passed through these it came upon a
+broad plain covered with gardens and watered by many pretty brooks that
+flowed through it. There were paths through these gardens, and over some
+of the brooks were ornamental glass bridges.
+Dorothy and Zeb now got out of the buggy and walked beside the Prince,
+so that they might see and examine the flowers and plants better.
+"Who built these lovely bridges?" asked the little girl.
+"No one built them," answered the man with the star. "They grow."
+"That's queer," said she. "Did the glass houses in your city grow, too?"
+"Of course," he replied. "But it took a good many years for them to grow
+as large and fine as they are now. That is why we are so angry when a
+Rain of Stones comes to break our towers and crack our roofs."
+"Can't you mend them?" she enquired.
+"No; but they will grow together again, in time, and we must wait until
+they do."
+They first passed through many beautiful gardens of flowers, which grew
+nearest the city; but Dorothy could hardly tell what kind of flowers
+they were, because the colors were constantly changing under the
+shifting lights of the six suns. A flower would be pink one second,
+white the next, then blue or yellow; and it was the same way when they
+came to the plants, which had broad leaves and grew close to the ground.
+When they passed over a field of grass Jim immediately stretched down
+his head and began to nibble.
+"A nice country this is," he grumbled, "where a respectable horse has to
+eat pink grass!"
+"It's violet," said the Wizard, who was in the buggy.
+"Now it's blue," complained the horse. "As a matter of fact, I'm eating
+rainbow grass."
+"How does it taste?" asked the Wizard.
+"Not bad at all," said Jim. "If they give me plenty of it I'll not
+complain about its color."
+By this time the party had reached a freshly plowed field, and the
+Prince said to Dorothy:
+"This is our planting-ground."
+Several Mangaboos came forward with glass spades and dug a hole in the
+ground. Then they put the two halves of the Sorcerer into it and covered
+him up. After that other people brought water from a brook and sprinkled
+the earth.
+"He will sprout very soon," said the Prince, "and grow into a large
+bush, from which we shall in time be able to pick several very good
+sorcerers."
+"Do all your people grow on bushes?" asked the boy.
+"Certainly," was the reply. "Do not all people grow upon bushes where
+you came from, on the outside of the earth."
+"Not that I ever heard of."
+"How strange! But if you will come with me to one of our folk gardens I
+will show you the way we grow in the Land of the Mangaboos."
+It appeared that these odd people, while they were able to walk through
+the air with ease, usually moved upon the ground in the ordinary way.
+There were no stairs in their houses, because they did not need them,
+but on a level surface they generally walked just as we do.
+The little party of strangers now followed the Prince across a few more
+of the glass bridges and along several paths until they came to a garden
+enclosed by a high hedge. Jim had refused to leave the field of grass,
+where he was engaged in busily eating; so the Wizard got out of the
+buggy and joined Zeb and Dorothy, and the kitten followed demurely at
+their heels.
+Inside the hedge they came upon row after row of large and handsome
+plants with broad leaves gracefully curving until their points nearly
+reached the ground. In the center of each plant grew a daintily dressed
+Mangaboo, for the clothing of all these creatures grew upon them and was
+attached to their bodies.
+The growing Mangaboos were of all sizes, from the blossom that had just
+turned into a wee baby to the full-grown and almost ripe man or woman.
+On some of the bushes might be seen a bud, a blossom, a baby, a
+half-grown person and a ripe one; but even those ready to pluck were
+motionless and silent, as if devoid of life. This sight explained to
+Dorothy why she had seen no children among the Mangaboos, a thing she
+had until now been unable to account for.
+"Our people do not acquire their real life until they leave their
+bushes," said the Prince. "You will notice they are all attached to the
+plants by the soles of their feet, and when they are quite ripe they are
+easily separated from the stems and at once attain the powers of motion
+and speech. So while they grow they cannot be said to really live, and
+they must be picked before they can become good citizens."
+"How long do you live, after you are picked?" asked Dorothy.
+"That depends upon the care we take of ourselves," he replied. "If we
+keep cool and moist, and meet with no accidents, we often live for five
+years. I've been picked over six years, but our family is known to be
+especially long lived."
+"Do you eat?" asked the boy.
+"Eat! No, indeed. We are quite solid inside our bodies, and have no need
+to eat, any more than does a potato."
+"But the potatoes sometimes sprout," said Zeb.
+"And sometimes we do," answered the Prince; "but that is considered a
+great misfortune, for then we must be planted at once."
+"Where did you grow?" asked the Wizard.
+"I will show you," was the reply. "Step this way, please."
+He led them within another but smaller circle of hedge, where grew one
+large and beautiful bush.
+"This," said he, "is the Royal Bush of the Mangaboos. All of our Princes
+and Rulers have grown upon this one bush from time immemorial."
+They stood before it in silent admiration. On the central stalk stood
+poised the figure of a girl so exquisitely formed and colored and so
+lovely in the expression of her delicate features that Dorothy thought
+she had never seen so sweet and adorable a creature in all her life.
+The maiden's gown was soft as satin and fell about her in ample folds,
+while dainty lace-like traceries trimmed the bodice and sleeves. Her
+flesh was fine and smooth as polished ivory, and her poise expressed
+both dignity and grace.
+"Who is this?" asked the Wizard, curiously.
+The Prince had been staring hard at the girl on the bush. Now he
+answered, with a touch of uneasiness in his cold tones:
+"She is the Ruler destined to be my successor, for she is a Royal
+Princess. When she becomes fully ripe I must abandon the sovereignty of
+the Mangaboos to her."
+"Isn't she ripe now?" asked Dorothy.
+He hesitated.
+"Not quite," said he, finally. "It will be several days before she needs
+to be picked, or at least that is my judgment. I am in no hurry to
+resign my office and be planted, you may be sure."
+"Probably not," declared the Wizard, nodding.
+"This is one of the most unpleasant things about our vegetable lives,"
+continued the Prince, with a sigh, "that while we are in our full prime
+we must give way to another, and be covered up in the ground to sprout
+and grow and give birth to other people."
+"I'm sure the Princess is ready to be picked," asserted Dorothy, gazing
+hard at the beautiful girl on the bush. "She's as perfect as she can
+be."
+"Never mind," answered the Prince, hastily, "she will be all right for a
+few days longer, and it is best for me to rule until I can dispose of
+you strangers, who have come to our land uninvited and must be attended
+to at once."
+"What are you going to do with us?" asked Zeb.
+"That is a matter I have not quite decided upon," was the reply. "I
+think I shall keep this Wizard until a new Sorcerer is ready to pick,
+for he seems quite skillful and may be of use to us. But the rest of you
+must be destroyed in some way, and you cannot be planted, because I do
+not wish horses and cats and meat people growing all over our country."
+"You needn't worry," said Dorothy. "We wouldn't grow under ground, I'm
+sure."
+"But why destroy my friends?" asked the little Wizard. "Why not let them
+live?"
+"They do not belong here," returned the Prince. "They have no right to
+be inside the earth at all."
+"We didn't ask to come down here; we fell," said Dorothy.
+"That is no excuse," declared the Prince, coldly.
+The children looked at each other in perplexity, and the Wizard sighed.
+Eureka rubbed her paw on her face and said in her soft, purring voice:
+"He won't need to destroy _me_, for if I don't get something to eat
+pretty soon I shall starve to death, and so save him the trouble."
+"If he planted you, he might grow some cat-tails," suggested the Wizard.
+"Oh, Eureka! perhaps we can find you some milk-weeds to eat," said the
+boy.
+"Phoo!" snarled the kitten; "I wouldn't touch the nasty things!"
+"You don't need milk, Eureka," remarked Dorothy; "you are big enough now
+to eat any kind of food."
+"If I can get it," added Eureka.
+"I'm hungry myself," said Zeb. "But I noticed some strawberries growing
+in one of the gardens, and some melons in another place. These people
+don't eat such things, so perhaps on our way back they will let us get
+them."
+"Never mind your hunger," interrupted the Prince. "I shall order you
+destroyed in a few minutes, so you will have no need to ruin our pretty
+melon vines and berry bushes. Follow me, please, to meet your doom."
+CHAPTER 5.
+DOROTHY PICKS THE PRINCESS
+The words of the cold and moist vegetable Prince were not very
+comforting, and as he spoke them he turned away and left the enclosure.
+The children, feeling sad and despondent, were about to follow him when
+the Wizard touched Dorothy softly on her shoulder.
+"Wait!" he whispered.
+"What for?" asked the girl.
+"Suppose we pick the Royal Princess," said the Wizard. "I'm quite sure
+she's ripe, and as soon as she comes to life she will be the Ruler, and
+may treat us better than that heartless Prince intends to."
+"All right!" exclaimed Dorothy, eagerly. "Let's pick her while we have
+the chance, before the man with the star comes back."
+So together they leaned over the great bush and each of them seized one
+hand of the lovely Princess.
+"Pull!" cried Dorothy, and as they did so the royal lady leaned toward
+them and the stems snapped and separated from her feet. She was not at
+all heavy, so the Wizard and Dorothy managed to lift her gently to the
+ground.
+The beautiful creature passed her hands over her eyes an instant, tucked
+in a stray lock of hair that had become disarranged, and after a look
+around the garden made those present a gracious bow and said, in a sweet
+but even toned voice:
+"I thank you very much."
+"We salute your Royal Highness!" cried the Wizard, kneeling and kissing
+her hand.
+Just then the voice of the Prince was heard calling upon them to hasten,
+and a moment later he returned to the enclosure, followed by a number of
+his people.
+Instantly the Princess turned and faced him, and when he saw that she
+was picked the Prince stood still and began to tremble.
+"Sir," said the Royal Lady, with much dignity, "you have wronged me
+greatly, and would have wronged me still more had not these strangers
+come to my rescue. I have been ready for picking all the past week, but
+because you were selfish and desired to continue your unlawful rule,
+you left me to stand silent upon my bush."
+"I did not know that you were ripe," answered the Prince, in a low
+voice.
+"Give me the Star of Royalty!" she commanded.
+Slowly he took the shining star from his own brow and placed it upon
+that of the Princess. Then all the people bowed low to her, and the
+Prince turned and walked away alone. What became of him afterward our
+friends never knew.
+The people of Mangaboo now formed themselves into a procession and
+marched toward the glass city to escort their new ruler to her palace
+and to perform those ceremonies proper to the occasion. But while the
+people in the procession walked upon the ground the Princess walked in
+the air just above their heads, to show that she was a superior being
+and more exalted than her subjects.
+No one now seemed to pay any attention to the strangers, so Dorothy and
+Zeb and the Wizard let the train pass on and then wandered by themselves
+into the vegetable gardens. They did not bother to cross the bridges
+over the brooks, but when they came to a stream they stepped high and
+walked in the air to the other side. This was a very interesting
+experience to them, and Dorothy said:
+"I wonder why it is that we can walk so easily in the air."
+"Perhaps," answered the Wizard, "it is because we are close to the
+center of the earth, where the attraction of gravitation is very slight.
+But I've noticed that many queer things happen in fairy countries."
+"Is this a fairy country?" asked the boy.
+"Of course it is," returned Dorothy, promptly. "Only a fairy country
+could have veg'table people; and only in a fairy country could Eureka
+and Jim talk as we do."
+"That's true," said Zeb, thoughtfully.
+In the vegetable gardens they found the strawberries and melons, and
+several other unknown but delicious fruits, of which they ate heartily.
+But the kitten bothered them constantly by demanding milk or meat, and
+called the Wizard names because he could not bring her a dish of milk by
+means of his magical arts.
+As they sat upon the grass watching Jim, who was still busily eating,
+Eureka said:
+"I don't believe you are a Wizard at all!"
+"No," answered the little man, "you are quite right. In the strict sense
+of the word I am not a Wizard, but only a humbug."
+"The Wizard of Oz has always been a humbug," agreed Dorothy. "I've known
+him for a long time."
+"If that is so," said the boy, "how could he do that wonderful trick
+with the nine tiny piglets?"
+"Don't know," said Dorothy, "but it must have been humbug."
+"Very true," declared the Wizard, nodding at her. "It was necessary to
+deceive that ugly Sorcerer and the Prince, as well as their stupid
+people; but I don't mind telling you, who are my friends, that the thing
+was only a trick."
+"But I saw the little pigs with my own eyes!" exclaimed Zeb.
+"So did I," purred the kitten.
+"To be sure," answered the Wizard. "You saw them because they were
+there. They are in my inside pocket now. But the pulling of them apart
+and pushing them together again was only a sleight-of-hand trick."
+"Let's see the pigs," said Eureka, eagerly.
+The little man felt carefully in his pocket and pulled out the tiny
+piglets, setting them upon the grass one by one, where they ran around
+and nibbled the tender blades.
+"They're hungry, too," he said.
+"Oh, what cunning things!" cried Dorothy, catching up one and petting
+it.
+"Be careful!" said the piglet, with a squeal, "you're squeezing me!"
+"Dear me!" murmured the Wizard, looking at his pets in astonishment.
+"They can actually talk!"
+"May I eat one of them?" asked the kitten, in a pleading voice. "I'm
+awfully hungry."
+"Why, Eureka," said Dorothy, reproachfully, "what a cruel question! It
+would be dreadful to eat these dear little things."
+"I should say so!" grunted another of the piglets, looking uneasily at
+the kitten; "cats are cruel things."
+"I'm not cruel," replied the kitten, yawning. "I'm just hungry."
+"You cannot eat my piglets, even if you are starving," declared the
+little man, in a stern voice. "They are the only things I have to prove
+I'm a wizard."
+"How did they happen to be so little?" asked Dorothy. "I never saw such
+small pigs before."
+"They are from the Island of Teenty-Weent," said the Wizard, "where
+everything is small because it's a small island. A sailor brought them
+to Los Angeles and I gave him nine tickets to the circus for them."
+"But what am I going to eat?" wailed the kitten, sitting in front of
+Dorothy and looking pleadingly into her face. "There are no cows here
+to give milk; or any mice, or even grasshoppers. And if I can't eat the
+piglets you may as well plant me at once and raise catsup."
+"I have an idea," said the Wizard, "that there are fishes in these
+brooks. Do you like fish?"
+"Fish!" cried the kitten. "Do I like fish? Why, they're better than
+piglets--or even milk!"
+"Then I'll try to catch you some," said he.
+"But won't they be veg'table, like everything else here?" asked the
+kitten.
+"I think not. Fishes are not animals, and they are as cold and moist as
+the vegetables themselves. There is no reason, that I can see, why they
+may not exist in the waters of this strange country."
+Then the Wizard bent a pin for a hook and took a long piece of string
+from his pocket for a fish-line. The only bait he could find was a
+bright red blossom from a flower; but he knew fishes are easy to fool if
+anything bright attracts their attention, so he decided to try the
+blossom. Having thrown the end of his line in the water of a nearby
+brook he soon felt a sharp tug that told him a fish had bitten and was
+caught on the bent pin; so the little man drew in the string and, sure
+enough, the fish came with it and was landed safely on the shore,
+where it began to flop around in great excitement.
+The fish was fat and round, and its scales glistened like beautifully
+cut jewels set close together; but there was no time to examine it
+closely, for Eureka made a jump and caught it between her claws, and in
+a few moments it had entirely disappeared.
+"Oh, Eureka!" cried Dorothy, "did you eat the bones?"
+"If it had any bones, I ate them," replied the kitten, composedly, as it
+washed its face after the meal. "But I don't think that fish had any
+bones, because I didn't feel them scratch my throat."
+"You were very greedy," said the girl.
+"I was very hungry," replied the kitten.
+The little pigs had stood huddled in a group, watching this scene with
+frightened eyes.
+"Cats are dreadful creatures!" said one of them.
+"I'm glad we are not fishes!" said another.
+"Don't worry," Dorothy murmured, soothingly, "I'll not let the kitten
+hurt you."
+Then she happened to remember that in a corner of her suit-case were one
+or two crackers that were left over from her luncheon on the train, and
+she went to the buggy and brought them. Eureka stuck up her nose at such
+food, but the tiny piglets squealed delightedly at the sight of the
+crackers and ate them up in a jiffy.
+"Now let us go back to the city," suggested the Wizard. "That is, if Jim
+has had enough of the pink grass."
+The cab-horse, who was browsing near, lifted his head with a sigh.
+"I've tried to eat a lot while I had the chance," said he, "for it's
+likely to be a long while between meals in this strange country. But I'm
+ready to go, now, at any time you wish."
+So, after the Wizard had put the piglets back into his inside pocket,
+where they cuddled up and went to sleep, the three climbed into the
+buggy and Jim started back to the town.
+"Where shall we stay?" asked the girl.
+"I think I shall take possession of the House of the Sorcerer," replied
+the Wizard; "for the Prince said in the presence of his people that he
+would keep me until they picked another Sorcerer, and the new Princess
+won't know but that we belong there."
+They agreed to this plan, and when they reached the great square Jim
+drew the buggy into the big door of the domed hall.
+"It doesn't look very homelike," said Dorothy, gazing around at the
+bare room. "But it's a place to stay, anyhow."
+"What are those holes up there?" enquired the boy, pointing to some
+openings that appeared near the top of the dome.
+"They look like doorways," said Dorothy; "only there are no stairs to
+get to them."
+"You forget that stairs are unnecessary," observed the Wizard. "Let us
+walk up, and see where the doors lead to."
+With this he began walking in the air toward the high openings, and
+Dorothy and Zeb followed him. It was the same sort of climb one
+experiences when walking up a hill, and they were nearly out of breath
+when they came to the row of openings, which they perceived to be
+doorways leading into halls in the upper part of the house. Following
+these halls they discovered many small rooms opening from them, and some
+were furnished with glass benches, tables and chairs. But there were no
+beds at all.
+"I wonder if these people never sleep," said the girl.
+"Why, there seems to be no night at all in this country," Zeb replied.
+"Those colored suns are exactly in the same place they were when we
+came, and if there is no sunset there can be no night."
+"Very true," agreed the Wizard. "But it is a long time since I have had
+any sleep, and I'm tired. So I think I shall lie down upon one of these
+hard glass benches and take a nap."
+"I will, too," said Dorothy, and chose a little room at the end of the
+hall.
+Zeb walked down again to unharness Jim, who, when he found himself free,
+rolled over a few times and then settled down to sleep, with Eureka
+nestling comfortably beside his big, boney body. Then the boy returned
+to one of the upper rooms, and in spite of the hardness of the glass
+bench was soon deep in slumberland.
+CHAPTER 6.
+THE MANGABOOS PROVE DANGEROUS
+When the Wizard awoke the six colored suns were shining down upon the
+Land of the Mangaboos just as they had done ever since his arrival. The
+little man, having had a good sleep, felt rested and refreshed, and
+looking through the glass partition of the room he saw Zeb sitting up on
+his bench and yawning. So the Wizard went in to him.
+"Zeb," said he, "my balloon is of no further use in this strange
+country, so I may as well leave it on the square where it fell. But in
+the basket-car are some things I would like to keep with me. I wish you
+would go and fetch my satchel, two lanterns, and a can of kerosene oil
+that is under the seat. There is nothing else that I care about."
+So the boy went willingly upon the errand, and by the time he had
+returned Dorothy was awake. Then the three held a counsel to decide what
+they should do next, but could think of no way to better their
+condition.
+"I don't like these veg'table people," said the little girl. "They're
+cold and flabby, like cabbages, in spite of their prettiness."
+"I agree with you. It is because there is no warm blood in them,"
+remarked the Wizard.
+"And they have no hearts; so they can't love anyone--not even
+themselves," declared the boy.
+"The Princess is lovely to look at," continued Dorothy, thoughtfully;
+"but I don't care much for her, after all. If there was any other place
+to go, I'd like to go there."
+"But _is_ there any other place?" asked the Wizard.
+"I don't know," she answered.
+Just then they heard the big voice of Jim the cab-horse calling to them,
+and going to the doorway leading to the dome they found the Princess and
+a throng of her people had entered the House of the Sorcerer.
+So they went down to greet the beautiful vegetable lady, who said to
+them:
+"I have been talking with my advisors about you meat people, and we have
+decided that you do not belong in the Land of the Mangaboos and must not
+remain here."
+"How can we go away?" asked Dorothy.
+"Oh, you cannot go away, of course; so you must be destroyed," was the
+answer.
+"In what way?" enquired the Wizard.
+"We shall throw you three people into the Garden of the Twining Vines,"
+said the Princess, "and they will soon crush you and devour your bodies
+to make themselves grow bigger. The animals you have with you we will
+drive to the mountains and put into the Black Pit. Then our country will
+be rid of all its unwelcome visitors."
+"But you are in need of a Sorcerer," said the Wizard, "and not one of
+those growing is yet ripe enough to pick. I am greater than any
+thorn-covered sorcerer that ever grew in your garden. Why destroy me?"
+"It is true we need a Sorcerer," acknowledged the Princess, "but I am
+informed that one of our own will be ready to pick in a few days, to
+take the place of Gwig, whom you cut in two before it was time for him
+to be planted. Let us see your arts, and the sorceries you are able to
+perform. Then I will decide whether to destroy you with the others or
+not."
+At this the Wizard made a bow to the people and repeated his trick of
+producing the nine tiny piglets and making them disappear again. He did
+it very cleverly, indeed, and the Princess looked at the strange
+piglets as if she were as truly astonished as any vegetable person could
+be. But afterward she said:
+"I have heard of this wonderful magic. But it accomplishes nothing of
+value. What else can you do?"
+The Wizard tried to think. Then he jointed together the blades of his
+sword and balanced it very skillfully upon the end of his nose. But even
+that did not satisfy the Princess.
+Just then his eye fell upon the lanterns and the can of kerosene oil
+which Zeb had brought from the car of his balloon, and he got a clever
+idea from those commonplace things.
+"Your Highness," said he, "I will now proceed to prove my magic by
+creating two suns that you have never seen before; also I will exhibit a
+Destroyer much more dreadful than your Clinging Vines."
+So he placed Dorothy upon one side of him and the boy upon the other and
+set a lantern upon each of their heads.
+"Don't laugh," he whispered to them, "or you will spoil the effect of my
+magic."
+Then, with much dignity and a look of vast importance upon his wrinkled
+face, the Wizard got out his match-box and lighted the two lanterns. The
+glare they made was very small when compared with the radiance of the
+six great colored suns; but still they gleamed steadily and clearly. The
+Mangaboos were much impressed because they had never before seen any
+light that did not come directly from their suns.
+Next the Wizard poured a pool of oil from the can upon the glass floor,
+where it covered quite a broad surface. When he lighted the oil a
+hundred tongues of flame shot up, and the effect was really imposing.
+"Now, Princess," exclaimed the Wizard, "those of your advisors who
+wished to throw us into the Garden of Clinging Vines must step within
+this circle of light. If they advised you well, and were in the right,
+they will not be injured in any way. But if any advised you wrongly, the
+light will wither him."
+The advisors of the Princess did not like this test; but she commanded
+them to step into the flame and one by one they did so, and were
+scorched so badly that the air was soon filled with an odor like that of
+baked potatoes. Some of the Mangaboos fell down and had to be dragged
+from the fire, and all were so withered that it would be necessary to
+plant them at once.
+"Sir," said the Princess to the Wizard, "you are greater than any
+Sorcerer we have ever known. As it is evident that my people have
+advised me wrongly, I will not cast you three people into the dreadful
+Garden of the Clinging Vines; but your animals must be driven into the
+Black Pit in the mountain, for my subjects cannot bear to have them
+around."
+The Wizard was so pleased to have saved the two children and himself
+that he said nothing against this decree; but when the Princess had gone
+both Jim and Eureka protested they did not want to go to the Black Pit,
+and Dorothy promised she would do all that she could to save them from
+such a fate.
+For two or three days after this--if we call days the periods between
+sleep, there being no night to divide the hours into days--our friends
+were not disturbed in any way. They were even permitted to occupy the
+House of the Sorcerer in peace, as if it had been their own, and to
+wander in the gardens in search of food.
+Once they came near to the enclosed Garden of the Clinging Vines, and
+walking high into the air looked down upon it with much interest. They
+saw a mass of tough green vines all matted together and writhing and
+twisting around like a nest of great snakes. Everything the vines
+touched they crushed, and our adventurers were indeed thankful to have
+escaped being cast among them.
+Whenever the Wizard went to sleep he would take the nine tiny piglets
+from his pocket and let them run around on the floor of his room to
+amuse themselves and get some exercise; and one time they found his
+glass door ajar and wandered into the hall and then into the bottom part
+of the great dome, walking through the air as easily as Eureka could.
+They knew the kitten, by this time, so they scampered over to where she
+lay beside Jim and commenced to frisk and play with her.
+The cab-horse, who never slept long at a time, sat upon his haunches and
+watched the tiny piglets and the kitten with much approval.
+"Don't be rough!" he would call out, if Eureka knocked over one of the
+round, fat piglets with her paw; but the pigs never minded, and enjoyed
+the sport very greatly.
+Suddenly they looked up to find the room filled with the silent,
+solemn-eyed Mangaboos. Each of the vegetable folks bore a branch covered
+with sharp thorns, which was thrust defiantly toward the horse, the
+kitten and the piglets.
+"Here--stop this foolishness!" Jim roared, angrily; but after being
+pricked once or twice he got upon his four legs and kept out of the way
+of the thorns.
+The Mangaboos surrounded them in solid ranks, but left an opening to the
+doorway of the hall; so the animals slowly retreated until they were
+driven from the room and out upon the street. Here were more of the
+vegetable people with thorns, and silently they urged the now frightened
+creatures down the street. Jim had to be careful not to step upon the
+tiny piglets, who scampered under his feet grunting and squealing, while
+Eureka, snarling and biting at the thorns pushed toward her, also tried
+to protect the pretty little things from injury. Slowly but steadily the
+heartless Mangaboos drove them on, until they had passed through the
+city and the gardens and come to the broad plains leading to the
+mountain.
+"What does all this mean, anyhow?" asked the horse, jumping to escape a
+thorn.
+"Why, they are driving us toward the Black Pit, into which they
+threatened to cast us," replied the kitten. "If I were as big as you
+are, Jim, I'd fight these miserable turnip-roots!"
+"What would you do?" enquired Jim.
+"I'd kick out with those long legs and iron-shod hoofs."
+"All right," said the horse; "I'll do it."
+An instant later he suddenly backed toward the crowd of Mangaboos and
+kicked out his hind legs as hard as he could. A dozen of them smashed
+together and tumbled to the ground, and seeing his success Jim kicked
+again and again, charging into the vegetable crowd, knocking them in
+all directions and sending the others scattering to escape his iron
+heels. Eureka helped him by flying into the faces of the enemy and
+scratching and biting furiously, and the kitten ruined so many vegetable
+complexions that the Mangaboos feared her as much as they did the horse.
+But the foes were too many to be repulsed for long. They tired Jim and
+Eureka out, and although the field of battle was thickly covered with
+mashed and disabled Mangaboos, our animal friends had to give up at last
+and allow themselves to be driven to the mountain.
+CHAPTER 7.
+INTO THE BLACK PIT AND OUT AGAIN
+When they came to the mountain it proved to be a rugged, towering chunk
+of deep green glass, and looked dismal and forbidding in the extreme.
+Half way up the steep was a yawning cave, black as night beyond the
+point where the rainbow rays of the colored suns reached into it.
+The Mangaboos drove the horse and the kitten and the piglets into this
+dark hole and then, having pushed the buggy in after them--for it seemed
+some of them had dragged it all the way from the domed hall--they began
+to pile big glass rocks within the entrance, so that the prisoners could
+not get out again.
+"This is dreadful!" groaned Jim. "It will be about the end of our
+adventures, I guess."
+"If the Wizard was here," said one of the piglets, sobbing bitterly, "he
+would not see us suffer so."
+"We ought to have called him and Dorothy when we were first attacked,"
+added Eureka. "But never mind; be brave, my friends, and I will go and
+tell our masters where you are, and get them to come to your rescue."
+The mouth of the hole was nearly filled up now, but the kitten gave a
+leap through the remaining opening and at once scampered up into the
+air. The Mangaboos saw her escape, and several of them caught up their
+thorns and gave chase, mounting through the air after her. Eureka,
+however, was lighter than the Mangaboos, and while they could mount only
+about a hundred feet above the earth the kitten found she could go
+nearly two hundred feet. So she ran along over their heads until she had
+left them far behind and below and had come to the city and the House of
+the Sorcerer. There she entered in at Dorothy's window in the dome and
+aroused her from her sleep.
+As soon as the little girl knew what had happened she awakened the
+Wizard and Zeb, and at once preparations were made to go to the rescue
+of Jim and the piglets. The Wizard carried his satchel, which was quite
+heavy, and Zeb carried the two lanterns and the oil can. Dorothy's
+wicker suit-case was still under the seat of the buggy, and by good
+fortune the boy had also placed the harness in the buggy when he had
+taken it off from Jim to let the horse lie down and rest. So there was
+nothing for the girl to carry but the kitten, which she held close to
+her bosom and tried to comfort, for its little heart was still beating
+rapidly.
+Some of the Mangaboos discovered them as soon as they left the House of
+the Sorcerer; but when they started toward the mountain the vegetable
+people allowed them to proceed without interference, yet followed in a
+crowd behind them so that they could not go back again.
+Before long they neared the Black Pit, where a busy swarm of Mangaboos,
+headed by their Princess, was engaged in piling up glass rocks before
+the entrance.
+"Stop, I command you!" cried the Wizard, in an angry tone, and at once
+began pulling down the rocks to liberate Jim and the piglets. Instead of
+opposing him in this they stood back in silence until he had made a
+good-sized hole in the barrier, when by order of the Princess they all
+sprang forward and thrust out their sharp thorns.
+Dorothy hopped inside the opening to escape being pricked, and Zeb and
+the Wizard, after enduring a few stabs from the thorns, were glad to
+follow her. At once the Mangaboos began piling up the rocks of glass
+again, and as the little man realized that they were all about to be
+entombed in the mountain he said to the children:
+"My dears, what shall we do? Jump out and fight?"
+"What's the use?" replied Dorothy. "I'd as soon die here as live much
+longer among those cruel and heartless people."
+"That's the way I feel about it," remarked Zeb, rubbing his wounds.
+"I've had enough of the Mangaboos."
+"All right," said the Wizard; "I'm with you, whatever you decide. But we
+can't live long in this cavern, that's certain."
+Noticing that the light was growing dim he picked up his nine piglets,
+patted each one lovingly on its fat little head, and placed them
+carefully in his inside pocket.
+Zeb struck a match and lighted one of the lanterns. The rays of the
+colored suns were now shut out from them forever, for the last chinks
+had been filled up in the wall that separated their prison from the Land
+of the Mangaboos.
+"How big is this hole?" asked Dorothy.
+"I'll explore it and see," replied the boy.
+So he carried the lantern back for quite a distance, while Dorothy and
+the Wizard followed at his side. The cavern did not come to an end, as
+they had expected it would, but slanted upward through the great glass
+mountain, running in a direction that promised to lead them to the side
+opposite the Mangaboo country.
+"It isn't a bad road," observed the Wizard, "and if we followed it it
+might lead us to some place that is more comfortable than this black
+pocket we are now in. I suppose the vegetable folk were always afraid to
+enter this cavern because it is dark; but we have our lanterns to light
+the way, so I propose that we start out and discover where this tunnel
+in the mountain leads to."
+The others agreed readily to this sensible suggestion, and at once the
+boy began to harness Jim to the buggy. When all was in readiness the
+three took their seats in the buggy and Jim started cautiously along the
+way, Zeb driving while the Wizard and Dorothy each held a lighted
+lantern so the horse could see where to go.
+Sometimes the tunnel was so narrow that the wheels of the buggy grazed
+the sides; then it would broaden out as wide as a street; but the floor
+was usually smooth, and for a long time they travelled on without any
+accident. Jim stopped sometimes to rest, for the climb was rather steep
+and tiresome.
+"We must be nearly as high as the six colored suns, by this time," said
+Dorothy. "I didn't know this mountain was so tall."
+"We are certainly a good distance away from the Land of the Mangaboos,"
+added Zeb; "for we have slanted away from it ever since we started."
+But they kept steadily moving, and just as Jim was about tired out with
+his long journey the way suddenly grew lighter, and Zeb put out the
+lanterns to save the oil.
+To their joy they found it was a white light that now greeted them, for
+all were weary of the colored rainbow lights which, after a time, had
+made their eyes ache with their constantly shifting rays. The sides of
+the tunnel showed before them like the inside of a long spy-glass, and
+the floor became more level. Jim hastened his lagging steps at this
+assurance of a quick relief from the dark passage, and in a few moments
+more they had emerged from the mountain and found themselves face to
+face with a new and charming country.
+CHAPTER 8.
+THE VALLEY OF VOICES
+By journeying through the glass mountain they had reached a delightful
+valley that was shaped like the hollow of a great cup, with another
+rugged mountain showing on the other side of it, and soft and pretty
+green hills at the ends. It was all laid out into lovely lawns and
+gardens, with pebble paths leading through them and groves of beautiful
+and stately trees dotting the landscape here and there. There were
+orchards, too, bearing luscious fruits that are all unknown in our
+world. Alluring brooks of crystal water flowed sparkling between their
+flower-strewn banks, while scattered over the valley were dozens of the
+quaintest and most picturesque cottages our travelers had ever beheld.
+None of them were in clusters, such as villages or towns, but each had
+ample grounds of its own, with orchards and gardens surrounding it.
+As the new arrivals gazed upon this exquisite scene they were enraptured
+by its beauties and the fragrance that permeated the soft air, which
+they breathed so gratefully after the confined atmosphere of the tunnel.
+Several minutes were consumed in silent admiration before they noticed
+two very singular and unusual facts about this valley. One was that it
+was lighted from some unseen source; for no sun or moon was in the
+arched blue sky, although every object was flooded with a clear and
+perfect light. The second and even more singular fact was the absence of
+any inhabitant of this splendid place. From their elevated position they
+could overlook the entire valley, but not a single moving object could
+they see. All appeared mysteriously deserted.
+The mountain on this side was not glass, but made of a stone similar to
+granite. With some difficulty and danger Jim drew the buggy over the
+loose rocks until he reached the green lawns below, where the paths and
+orchards and gardens began. The nearest cottage was still some distance
+away.
+"Isn't it fine?" cried Dorothy, in a joyous voice, as she sprang out of
+the buggy and let Eureka run frolicking over the velvety grass.
+"Yes, indeed!" answered Zeb. "We were lucky to get away from those
+dreadful vegetable people."
+"It wouldn't be so bad," remarked the Wizard, gazing around him, "if we
+were obliged to live here always. We couldn't find a prettier place, I'm
+sure."
+He took the piglets from his pocket and let them run on the grass, and
+Jim tasted a mouthful of the green blades and declared he was very
+contented in his new surroundings.
+"We can't walk in the air here, though," called Eureka, who had tried it
+and failed; but the others were satisfied to walk on the ground, and the
+Wizard said they must be nearer the surface of the earth than they had
+been in the Mangaboo country, for everything was more homelike and
+natural.
+"But where are the people?" asked Dorothy.
+The little man shook his bald head.
+"Can't imagine, my dear," he replied.
+They heard the sudden twittering of a bird, but could not find the
+creature anywhere. Slowly they walked along the path toward the nearest
+cottage, the piglets racing and gambolling beside them and Jim pausing
+at every step for another mouthful of grass.
+Presently they came to a low plant which had broad, spreading leaves, in
+the center of which grew a single fruit about as large as a peach. The
+fruit was so daintily colored and so fragrant, and looked so appetizing
+and delicious that Dorothy stopped and exclaimed:
+"What is it, do you s'pose?"
+The piglets had smelled the fruit quickly, and before the girl could
+reach out her hand to pluck it every one of the nine tiny ones had
+rushed in and commenced to devour it with great eagerness.
+"It's good, anyway," said Zeb, "or those little rascals wouldn't have
+gobbled it up so greedily."
+"Where are they?" asked Dorothy, in astonishment.
+They all looked around, but the piglets had disappeared.
+"Dear me!" cried the Wizard; "they must have run away. But I didn't see
+them go; did you?"
+"No!" replied the boy and the girl, together.
+"Here,--piggy, piggy, piggy!" called their master, anxiously.
+Several squeals and grunts were instantly heard at his feet, but the
+Wizard could not discover a single piglet.
+"Where are you?" he asked.
+"Why, right beside you," spoke a tiny voice. "Can't you see us?"
+"No," answered the little man, in a puzzled tone.
+"We can see you," said another of the piglets.
+The Wizard stooped down and put out his hand, and at once felt the small
+fat body of one of his pets. He picked it up, but could not see what he
+held.
+"It is very strange," said he, soberly. "The piglets have become
+invisible, in some curious way."
+"I'll bet it's because they ate that peach!" cried the kitten.
+"It wasn't a peach, Eureka," said Dorothy. "I only hope it wasn't
+poison."
+"It was fine, Dorothy," called one of the piglets.
+"We'll eat all we can find of them," said another.
+"But _we_ mus'n't eat them," the Wizard warned the children, "or we too
+may become invisible, and lose each other. If we come across another of
+the strange fruit we must avoid it."
+Calling the piglets to him he picked them all up, one by one, and put
+them away in his pocket; for although he could not see them he could
+feel them, and when he had buttoned his coat he knew they were safe for
+the present.
+The travellers now resumed their walk toward the cottage, which they
+presently reached. It was a pretty place, with vines growing thickly
+over the broad front porch. The door stood open and a table was set in
+the front room, with four chairs drawn up to it. On the table were
+plates, knives and forks, and dishes of bread, meat and fruits. The meat
+was smoking hot and the knives and forks were performing strange antics
+and jumping here and there in quite a puzzling way. But not a single
+person appeared to be in the room.
+"How funny!" exclaimed Dorothy, who with Zeb and the Wizard now stood in
+the doorway.
+A peal of merry laughter answered her, and the knives and forks fell to
+the plates with a clatter. One of the chairs pushed back from the table,
+and this was so astonishing and mysterious that Dorothy was almost
+tempted to run away in fright.
+"Here are strangers, mama!" cried the shrill and childish voice of some
+unseen person.
+"So I see, my dear," answered another voice, soft and womanly.
+"What do you want?" demanded a third voice, in a stern, gruff accent.
+"Well, well!" said the Wizard; "are there really people in this room?"
+"Of course," replied the man's voice.
+"And--pardon me for the foolish question--but, are you all invisible?"
+"Surely," the woman answered, repeating her low, rippling laughter.
+"Are you surprised that you are unable to see the people of Voe?"
+"Why, yes," stammered the Wizard. "All the people I have ever met before
+were very plain to see."
+"Where do you come from, then?" asked the woman, in a curious tone.
+"We belong upon the face of the earth," explained the Wizard, "but
+recently, during an earthquake, we fell down a crack and landed in the
+Country of the Mangaboos."
+"Dreadful creatures!" exclaimed the woman's voice. "I've heard of them."
+"They walled us up in a mountain," continued the Wizard; "but we found
+there was a tunnel through to this side, so we came here. It is a
+beautiful place. What do you call it?"
+"It is the Valley of Voe."
+"Thank you. We have seen no people since we arrived, so we came to this
+house to enquire our way."
+"Are you hungry?" asked the woman's voice.
+"I could eat something," said Dorothy.
+"So could I," added Zeb.
+"But we do not wish to intrude, I assure you," the Wizard hastened to
+say.
+"That's all right," returned the man's voice, more pleasantly than
+before. "You are welcome to what we have."
+As he spoke the voice came so near to Zeb that he jumped back in alarm.
+Two childish voices laughed merrily at this action, and Dorothy was sure
+they were in no danger among such light-hearted folks, even if those
+folks couldn't be seen.
+"What curious animal is that which is eating the grass on my lawn?"
+enquired the man's voice.
+"That's Jim," said the girl. "He's a horse."
+"What is he good for?" was the next question.
+"He draws the buggy you see fastened to him, and we ride in the buggy
+instead of walking," she explained.
+"Can he fight?" asked the man's voice.
+"No! he can kick pretty hard with his heels, and bite a little; but Jim
+can't 'zactly fight," she replied.
+"Then the bears will get him," said one of the children's voices.
+"Bears!" exclaimed Dorothy. "Are these bears here?"
+"That is the one evil of our country," answered the invisible man. "Many
+large and fierce bears roam in the Valley of Voe, and when they can
+catch any of us they eat us up; but as they cannot see us, we seldom get
+caught."
+"Are the bears invis'ble, too?" asked the girl.
+"Yes; for they eat of the dama-fruit, as we all do, and that keeps them
+from being seen by any eye, whether human or animal."
+"Does the dama-fruit grow on a low bush, and look something like a
+peach?" asked the Wizard.
+"Yes," was the reply.
+"If it makes you invis'ble, why do you eat it?" Dorothy enquired.
+"For two reasons, my dear," the woman's voice answered. "The dama-fruit
+is the most delicious thing that grows, and when it makes us invisible
+the bears cannot find us to eat us up. But now, good wanderers, your
+luncheon is on the table, so please sit down and eat as much as you
+like."
+CHAPTER 9.
+THEY FIGHT THE INVISIBLE BEARS
+The strangers took their seats at the table willingly enough, for they
+were all hungry and the platters were now heaped with good things to
+eat. In front of each place was a plate bearing one of the delicious
+dama-fruit, and the perfume that rose from these was so enticing and
+sweet that they were sorely tempted to eat of them and become invisible.
+But Dorothy satisfied her hunger with other things, and her companions
+did likewise, resisting the temptation.
+"Why do you not eat the damas?" asked the woman's voice.
+"We don't want to get invis'ble," answered the girl.
+"But if you remain visible the bears will see you and devour you," said
+a girlish young voice, that belonged to one of the children. "We who
+live here much prefer to be invisible; for we can still hug and kiss one
+another, and are quite safe from the bears."
+"And we do not have to be so particular about our dress," remarked the
+man.
+"And mama can't tell whether my face is dirty or not!" added the other
+childish voice, gleefully.
+"But I make you wash it, every time I think of it," said the mother;
+"for it stands to reason your face is dirty, Ianu, whether I can see it
+or not."
+Dorothy laughed and stretched out her hands.
+"Come here, please--Ianu and your sister--and let me feel of you," she
+requested.
+They came to her willingly, and Dorothy passed her hands over their
+faces and forms and decided one was a girl of about her own age and the
+other a boy somewhat smaller. The girl's hair was soft and fluffy and
+her skin as smooth as satin. When Dorothy gently touched her nose and
+ears and lips they seemed to be well and delicately formed.
+"If I could see you I am sure you would be beautiful," she declared.
+The girl laughed, and her mother said:
+"We are not vain in the Valley of Voe, because we can not display our
+beauty, and good actions and pleasant ways are what make us lovely to
+our companions. Yet we can see and appreciate the beauties of nature,
+the dainty flowers and trees, the green fields and the clear blue of the
+sky."
+"How about the birds and beasts and fishes?" asked Zeb.
+"The birds we cannot see, because they love to eat of the damas as much
+as we do; yet we hear their sweet songs and enjoy them. Neither can we
+see the cruel bears, for they also eat the fruit. But the fishes that
+swim in our brooks we can see, and often we catch them to eat."
+"It occurs to me you have a great deal to make you happy, even while
+invisible," remarked the Wizard. "Nevertheless, we prefer to remain
+visible while we are in your valley."
+Just then Eureka came in, for she had been until now wandering outside
+with Jim; and when the kitten saw the table set with food she cried out:
+"Now you must feed me, Dorothy, for I'm half starved."
+The children were inclined to be frightened by the sight of the small
+animal, which reminded them of the bears; but Dorothy reassured them by
+explaining that Eureka was a pet and could do no harm even if she wished
+to. Then, as the others had by this time moved away from the table, the
+kitten sprang upon the chair and put her paws upon the cloth to see what
+there was to eat. To her surprise an unseen hand clutched her and held
+her suspended in the air. Eureka was frantic with terror, and tried to
+scratch and bite, so the next moment she was dropped to the floor.
+"Did you see that, Dorothy?" she gasped.
+"Yes, dear," her mistress replied; "there are people living in this
+house, although we cannot see them. And you must have better manners,
+Eureka, or something worse will happen to you."
+She placed a plate of food upon the floor and the kitten ate greedily.
+"Give me that nice-smelling fruit I saw on the table," she begged, when
+she had cleaned the plate.
+"Those are damas," said Dorothy, "and you must never even taste them,
+Eureka, or you'll get invis'ble, and then we can't see you at all."
+The kitten gazed wistfully at the forbidden fruit.
+"Does it hurt to be invis'ble?" she asked.
+"I don't know," Dorothy answered; "but it would hurt me dre'fully to
+lose you."
+"Very well, I won't touch it," decided the kitten; "but you must keep it
+away from me, for the smell is very tempting."
+"Can you tell us, sir or ma'am," said the Wizard, addressing the air
+because he did not quite know where the unseen people stood, "if there
+is any way we can get out of your beautiful Valley, and on top of the
+Earth again."
+"Oh, one can leave the Valley easily enough," answered the man's voice;
+"but to do so you must enter a far less pleasant country. As for
+reaching the top of the earth, I have never heard that it is possible to
+do that, and if you succeeded in getting there you would probably fall
+off."
+"Oh, no," said Dorothy, "we've been there, and we know."
+"The Valley of Voe is certainly a charming place," resumed the Wizard;
+"but we cannot be contented in any other land than our own, for long.
+Even if we should come to unpleasant places on our way it is necessary,
+in order to reach the earth's surface, to keep moving on toward it."
+"In that case," said the man, "it will be best for you to cross our
+Valley and mount the spiral staircase inside the Pyramid Mountain. The
+top of that mountain is lost in the clouds, and when you reach it you
+will be in the awful Land of Naught, where the Gargoyles live."
+"What are Gargoyles?" asked Zeb.
+"I do not know, young sir. Our greatest Champion, Overman-Anu, once
+climbed the spiral stairway and fought nine days with the Gargoyles
+before he could escape them and come back; but he could never be induced
+to describe the dreadful creatures, and soon afterward a bear caught
+him and ate him up."
+The wanderers were rather discouraged by this gloomy report, but Dorothy
+said with a sigh:
+"If the only way to get home is to meet the Gurgles, then we've got to
+meet 'em. They can't be worse than the Wicked Witch or the Nome King."
+"But you must remember you had the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to help
+you conquer those enemies," suggested the Wizard. "Just now, my dear,
+there is not a single warrior in your company."
+"Oh, I guess Zeb could fight if he had to. Couldn't you, Zeb?" asked the
+little girl.
+"Perhaps; if I had to," answered Zeb, doubtfully.
+"And you have the jointed sword that you chopped the veg'table Sorcerer
+in two with," the girl said to the little man.
+"True," he replied; "and in my satchel are other useful things to fight
+with."
+"What the Gargoyles most dread is a noise," said the man's voice. "Our
+Champion told me that when he shouted his battle-cry the creatures
+shuddered and drew back, hesitating to continue the combat. But they
+were in great numbers, and the Champion could not shout much because he
+had to save his breath for fighting."
+"Very good," said the Wizard; "we can all yell better than we can fight,
+so we ought to defeat the Gargoyles."
+"But tell me," said Dorothy, "how did such a brave Champion happen to
+let the bears eat him? And if he was invis'ble, and the bears invis'ble,
+who knows that they really ate him up?"
+"The Champion had killed eleven bears in his time," returned the unseen
+man; "and we know this is true because when any creature is dead the
+invisible charm of the dama-fruit ceases to be active, and the slain one
+can be plainly seen by all eyes. When the Champion killed a bear
+everyone could see it; and when the bears killed the Champion we all saw
+several pieces of him scattered about, which of course disappeared again
+when the bears devoured them."
+They now bade farewell to the kind but unseen people of the cottage, and
+after the man had called their attention to a high, pyramid-shaped
+mountain on the opposite side of the Valley, and told them how to travel
+in order to reach it, they again started upon their journey.
+They followed the course of a broad stream and passed several more
+pretty cottages; but of course they saw no one, nor did any one speak to
+them. Fruits and flowers grew plentifully all about, and there were many
+of the delicious damas that the people of Voe were so fond of.
+About noon they stopped to allow Jim to rest in the shade of a pretty
+orchard, and while they plucked and ate some of the cherries and plums
+that grew there a soft voice suddenly said to them:
+"There are bears near by. Be careful."
+The Wizard got out his sword at once, and Zeb grabbed the horse-whip.
+Dorothy climbed into the buggy, although Jim had been unharnessed from
+it and was grazing some distance away.
+The owner of the unseen voice laughed lightly and said:
+"You cannot escape the bears that way."
+"How _can_ we 'scape?" asked Dorothy, nervously, for an unseen danger is
+always the hardest to face.
+"You must take to the river," was the reply. "The bears will not venture
+upon the water."
+"But we would be drowned!" exclaimed the girl.
+"Oh, there is no need of that," said the voice, which from its gentle
+tones seemed to belong to a young girl. "You are strangers in the Valley
+of Voe, and do not seem to know our ways; so I will try to save you."
+The next moment a broad-leaved plant was jerked from the ground where it
+grew and held suspended in the air before the Wizard.
+"Sir," said the voice, "you must rub these leaves upon the soles of
+all your feet, and then you will be able to walk upon the water without
+sinking below the surface. It is a secret the bears do not know, and we
+people of Voe usually walk upon the water when we travel, and so escape
+our enemies."
+"Thank you!" cried the Wizard, joyfully, and at once rubbed a leaf upon
+the soles of Dorothy's shoes and then upon his own. The girl took a leaf
+and rubbed it upon the kitten's paws, and the rest of the plant was
+handed to Zeb, who, after applying it to his own feet, carefully rubbed
+it upon all four of Jim's hoofs and then upon the tires of the
+buggy-wheels. He had nearly finished this last task when a low growling
+was suddenly heard and the horse began to jump around and kick viciously
+with his heels.
+"Quick! To the water, or you are lost!" cried their unseen friend, and
+without hesitation the Wizard drew the buggy down the bank and out upon
+the broad river, for Dorothy was still seated in it with Eureka in her
+arms. They did not sink at all, owing to the virtues of the strange
+plant they had used, and when the buggy was in the middle of the stream
+the Wizard returned to the bank to assist Zeb and Jim.
+The horse was plunging madly about, and two or three deep gashes
+appeared upon its flanks, from which the blood flowed freely.
+"Run for the river!" shouted the Wizard, and Jim quickly freed himself
+from his unseen tormenters by a few vicious kicks and then obeyed. As
+soon as he trotted out upon the surface of the river he found himself
+safe from pursuit, and Zeb was already running across the water toward
+Dorothy.
+As the little Wizard turned to follow them he felt a hot breath against
+his cheek and heard a low, fierce growl. At once he began stabbing at
+the air with his sword, and he knew that he had struck some substance
+because when he drew back the blade it was dripping with blood. The
+third time that he thrust out the weapon there was a loud roar and a
+fall, and suddenly at his feet appeared the form of a great red bear,
+which was nearly as big as the horse and much stronger and fiercer. The
+beast was quite dead from the sword thrusts, and after a glance at its
+terrible claws and sharp teeth the little man turned in a panic and
+rushed out upon the water, for other menacing growls told him more bears
+were near.
+On the river, however, the adventurers seemed to be perfectly safe.
+Dorothy and the buggy had floated slowly down stream with the current of
+the water, and the others made haste to join her. The Wizard opened his
+satchel and got out some sticking-plaster with which he mended the cuts
+Jim had received from the claws of the bears.
+"I think we'd better stick to the river, after this," said Dorothy. "If
+our unknown friend hadn't warned us, and told us what to do, we would
+all be dead by this time."
+"That is true," agreed the Wizard, "and as the river seems to be flowing
+in the direction of the Pyramid Mountain it will be the easiest way for
+us to travel."
+Zeb hitched Jim to the buggy again, and the horse trotted along and drew
+them rapidly over the smooth water. The kitten was at first dreadfully
+afraid of getting wet, but Dorothy let her down and soon Eureka was
+frisking along beside the buggy without being scared a bit. Once a
+little fish swam too near the surface, and the kitten grabbed it in her
+mouth and ate it up as quick as a wink; but Dorothy cautioned her to be
+careful what she ate in this valley of enchantments, and no more fishes
+were careless enough to swim within reach.
+After a journey of several hours they came to a point where the river
+curved, and they found they must cross a mile or so of the Valley before
+they came to the Pyramid Mountain. There were few houses in this part,
+and few orchards or flowers; so our friends feared they might encounter
+more of the savage bears, which they had learned to dread with all their
+hearts.
+"You'll have to make a dash, Jim," said the Wizard, "and run as fast as
+you can go."
+"All right," answered the horse; "I'll do my best. But you must remember
+I'm old, and my dashing days are past and gone."
+All three got into the buggy and Zeb picked up the reins, though Jim
+needed no guidance of any sort. The horse was still smarting from the
+sharp claws of the invisible bears, and as soon as he was on land and
+headed toward the mountain the thought that more of those fearsome
+creatures might be near acted as a spur and sent him galloping along in
+a way that made Dorothy catch her breath.
+Then Zeb, in a spirit of mischief, uttered a growl like that of the
+bears, and Jim pricked up his ears and fairly flew. His boney legs moved
+so fast they could scarcely be seen, and the Wizard clung fast to the
+seat and yelled "Whoa!" at the top of his voice.
+"I--I'm 'fraid he's--he's running away!" gasped Dorothy.
+"I _know_ he is," said Zeb; "but no bear can catch him if he keeps up
+that gait--and the harness or the buggy don't break."
+Jim did not make a mile a minute; but almost before they were aware of
+it he drew up at the foot of the mountain, so suddenly that the Wizard
+and Zeb both sailed over the dashboard and landed in the soft
+grass--where they rolled over several times before they stopped.
+Dorothy nearly went with them, but she was holding fast to the iron rail
+of the seat, and that saved her. She squeezed the kitten, though, until
+it screeched; and then the old cab-horse made several curious sounds
+that led the little girl to suspect he was laughing at them all.
+CHAPTER 10.
+THE BRAIDED MAN OF PYRAMID MOUNTAIN
+The mountain before them was shaped like a cone and was so tall that its
+point was lost in the clouds. Directly facing the place where Jim had
+stopped was an arched opening leading to a broad stairway. The stairs
+were cut in the rock inside the mountain, and they were broad and not
+very steep, because they circled around like a cork-screw, and at the
+arched opening where the flight began the circle was quite big. At the
+foot of the stairs was a sign reading:
+        WARNING.
+  These steps lead to the
+        Land of the Gargoyles.
+    DANGER! KEEP OUT.
+"I wonder how Jim is ever going to draw the buggy up so many stairs,"
+said Dorothy, gravely.
+"No trouble at all," declared the horse, with a contemptuous neigh.
+"Still, I don't care to drag any passengers. You'll all have to walk."
+"Suppose the stairs get steeper?" suggested Zeb, doubtfully.
+"Then you'll have to boost the buggy-wheels, that's all," answered Jim.
+"We'll try it, anyway," said the Wizard. "It's the only way to get out
+of the Valley of Voe."
+So they began to ascend the stairs, Dorothy and the Wizard first, Jim
+next, drawing the buggy, and then Zeb to watch that nothing happened to
+the harness.
+The light was dim, and soon they mounted into total darkness, so that
+the Wizard was obliged to get out his lanterns to light the way. But
+this enabled them to proceed steadily until they came to a landing where
+there was a rift in the side of the mountain that let in both light and
+air. Looking through this opening they could see the Valley of Voe lying
+far below them, the cottages seeming like toy houses from that distance.
+After resting a few moments they resumed their climb, and still the
+stairs were broad and low enough for Jim to draw the buggy easily after
+him. The old horse panted a little, and had to stop often to get his
+breath. At such times they were all glad to wait for him, for
+continually climbing up stairs is sure to make one's legs ache.
+They wound about, always going upward, for some time. The lights from
+the lanterns dimly showed the way, but it was a gloomy journey, and they
+were pleased when a broad streak of light ahead assured them they were
+coming to a second landing.
+Here one side of the mountain had a great hole in it, like the mouth of
+a cavern, and the stairs stopped at the near edge of the floor and
+commenced ascending again at the opposite edge.
+The opening in the mountain was on the side opposite to the Valley of
+Voe, and our travellers looked out upon a strange scene. Below them was
+a vast space, at the bottom of which was a black sea with rolling
+billows, through which little tongues of flame constantly shot up. Just
+above them, and almost on a level with their platform, were banks of
+rolling clouds which constantly shifted position and changed color. The
+blues and greys were very beautiful, and Dorothy noticed that on the
+cloud banks sat or reclined fleecy, shadowy forms of beautiful beings
+who must have been the Cloud Fairies. Mortals who stand upon the earth
+and look up at the sky cannot often distinguish these forms, but our
+friends were now so near to the clouds that they observed the dainty
+fairies very clearly.
+"Are they real?" asked Zeb, in an awed voice.
+"Of course," replied Dorothy, softly. "They are the Cloud Fairies."
+"They seem like open-work," remarked the boy, gazing intently. "If I
+should squeeze one, there wouldn't be anything left of it."
+In the open space between the clouds and the black, bubbling sea far
+beneath, could be seen an occasional strange bird winging its way
+swiftly through the air. These birds were of enormous size, and reminded
+Zeb of the rocs he had read about in the Arabian Nights. They had fierce
+eyes and sharp talons and beaks, and the children hoped none of them
+would venture into the cavern.
+"Well, I declare!" suddenly exclaimed the little Wizard. "What in the
+world is this?"
+They turned around and found a man standing on the floor in the center
+of the cave, who bowed very politely when he saw he had attracted their
+attention. He was a very old man, bent nearly double; but the queerest
+thing about him was his white hair and beard. These were so long that
+they reached to his feet, and both the hair and the beard were
+carefully plaited into many braids, and the end of each braid fastened
+with a bow of colored ribbon.
+"Where did you come from?" asked Dorothy, wonderingly.
+"No place at all," answered the man with the braids; "that is, not
+recently. Once I lived on top the earth, but for many years I have had
+my factory in this spot--half way up Pyramid Mountain."
+"Are we only half way up?" enquired the boy, in a discouraged tone.
+"I believe so, my lad," replied the braided man. "But as I have never
+been in either direction, down or up, since I arrived, I cannot be
+positive whether it is exactly half way or not."
+"Have you a factory in this place?" asked the Wizard, who had been
+examining the strange personage carefully.
+"To be sure," said the other. "I am a great inventor, you must know, and
+I manufacture my products in this lonely spot."
+"What are your products?" enquired the Wizard.
+"Well, I make Assorted Flutters for flags and bunting, and a superior
+grade of Rustles for ladies' silk gowns."
+"I thought so," said the Wizard, with a sigh. "May we examine some of
+these articles?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; come into my shop, please," and the braided man turned and
+led the way into a smaller cave, where he evidently lived. Here, on a
+broad shelf, were several card-board boxes of various sizes, each tied
+with cotton cord.
+"This," said the man, taking up a box and handling it gently, "contains
+twelve dozen rustles--enough to last any lady a year. Will you buy it,
+my dear?" he asked, addressing Dorothy.
+"My gown isn't silk," she said, smiling.
+"Never mind. When you open the box the rustles will escape, whether you
+are wearing a silk dress or not," said the man, seriously. Then he
+picked up another box. "In this," he continued, "are many assorted
+flutters. They are invaluable to make flags flutter on a still day, when
+there is no wind. You, sir," turning to the Wizard, "ought to have this
+assortment. Once you have tried my goods I am sure you will never be
+without them."
+"I have no money with me," said the Wizard, evasively.
+"I do not want money," returned the braided man, "for I could not spend
+it in this deserted place if I had it. But I would like very much a blue
+hair-ribbon. You will notice my braids are tied with yellow, pink,
+brown, red, green, white and black; but I have no blue ribbons."
+"I'll get you one!" cried Dorothy, who was sorry for the poor man; so
+she ran back to the buggy and took from her suit-case a pretty blue
+ribbon. It did her good to see how the braided man's eyes sparkled when
+he received this treasure.
+"You have made me very, very happy, my dear!" he exclaimed; and then he
+insisted on the Wizard taking the box of flutters and the little girl
+accepting the box of rustles.
+"You may need them, some time," he said, "and there is really no use in
+my manufacturing these things unless somebody uses them."
+"Why did you leave the surface of the earth?" enquired the Wizard.
+"I could not help it. It is a sad story, but if you will try to restrain
+your tears I will tell you about it. On earth I was a manufacturer of
+Imported Holes for American Swiss Cheese, and I will acknowledge that I
+supplied a superior article, which was in great demand. Also I made
+pores for porous plasters and high-grade holes for doughnuts and
+buttons. Finally I invented a new Adjustable Post-hole, which I thought
+would make my fortune. I manufactured a large quantity of these
+post-holes, and having no room in which to store them I set them all end
+to end and put the top one in the ground. That made an extraordinary
+long hole, as you may imagine, and reached far down into the earth; and,
+as I leaned over it to try to see to the bottom, I lost my balance and
+tumbled in. Unfortunately, the hole led directly into the vast space you
+see outside this mountain; but I managed to catch a point of rock that
+projected from this cavern, and so saved myself from tumbling headlong
+into the black waves beneath, where the tongues of flame that dart out
+would certainly have consumed me. Here, then, I made my home; and
+although it is a lonely place I amuse myself making rustles and
+flutters, and so get along very nicely."
+When the braided man had completed this strange tale Dorothy nearly
+laughed, because it was all so absurd; but the Wizard tapped his
+forehead significantly, to indicate that he thought the poor man was
+crazy. So they politely bade him good day, and went back to the outer
+cavern to resume their journey.
+CHAPTER 11.
+THEY MEET THE WOODEN GARGOYLES
+Another breathless climb brought our adventurers to a third landing
+where there was a rift in the mountain. On peering out all they could
+see was rolling banks of clouds, so thick that they obscured all else.
+But the travellers were obliged to rest, and while they were sitting on
+the rocky floor the Wizard felt in his pocket and brought out the nine
+tiny piglets. To his delight they were now plainly visible, which proved
+that they had passed beyond the influence of the magical Valley of Voe.
+"Why, we can see each other again!" cried one, joyfully.
+"Yes," sighed Eureka; "and I also can see you again, and the sight
+makes me dreadfully hungry. Please, Mr. Wizard, may I eat just one of
+the fat little piglets? You'd never miss _one_ of them, I'm sure!"
+"What a horrid, savage beast!" exclaimed a piglet; "and after we've been
+such good friends, too, and played with one another!"
+"When I'm not hungry, I love to play with you all," said the kitten,
+demurely; "but when my stomach is empty it seems that nothing would fill
+it so nicely as a fat piglet."
+"And we trusted you so!" said another of the nine, reproachfully.
+"And thought you were respectable!" said another.
+"It seems we were mistaken," declared a third, looking at the kitten
+timorously, "no one with such murderous desires should belong to our
+party, I'm sure."
+"You see, Eureka," remarked Dorothy, reprovingly, "you are making
+yourself disliked. There are certain things proper for a kitten to eat;
+but I never heard of a kitten eating a pig, under _any_ cir'stances."
+"Did you ever see such little pigs before?" asked the kitten. "They are
+no bigger than mice, and I'm sure mice are proper for me to eat."
+"It isn't the bigness, dear; its the variety," replied the girl. "These
+are Mr. Wizard's pets, just as you are my pet, and it wouldn't be any
+more proper for you to eat them than it would be for Jim to eat you."
+"And that's just what I shall do if you don't let those little balls of
+pork alone," said Jim, glaring at the kitten with his round, big eyes.
+"If you injure any one of them I'll chew you up instantly."
+The kitten looked at the horse thoughtfully, as if trying to decide
+whether he meant it or not.
+"In that case," she said, "I'll leave them alone. You haven't many teeth
+left, Jim, but the few you have are sharp enough to make me shudder. So
+the piglets will be perfectly safe, hereafter, as far as I am
+concerned."
+"That is right, Eureka," remarked the Wizard, earnestly. "Let us all be
+a happy family and love one another."
+Eureka yawned and stretched herself.
+"I've always loved the piglets," she said; "but they don't love me."
+"No one can love a person he's afraid of," asserted Dorothy. "If you
+behave, and don't scare the little pigs, I'm sure they'll grow very fond
+of you."
+The Wizard now put the nine tiny ones back into his pocket and the
+journey was resumed.
+"We must be pretty near the top, now," said the boy, as they climbed
+wearily up the dark, winding stairway.
+"The Country of the Gurgles can't be far from the top of the earth,"
+remarked Dorothy. "It isn't very nice down here. I'd like to get home
+again, I'm sure."
+No one replied to this, because they found they needed all their breath
+for the climb. The stairs had become narrower and Zeb and the Wizard
+often had to help Jim pull the buggy from one step to another, or keep
+it from jamming against the rocky walls.
+At last, however, a dim light appeared ahead of them, which grew clearer
+and stronger as they advanced.
+"Thank goodness we're nearly there!" panted the little Wizard.
+Jim, who was in advance, saw the last stair before him and stuck his
+head above the rocky sides of the stairway. Then he halted, ducked down
+and began to back up, so that he nearly fell with the buggy onto the
+others.
+"Let's go down again!" he said, in his hoarse voice.
+"Nonsense!" snapped the tired Wizard. "What's the matter with you, old
+man?"
+"Everything," grumbled the horse. "I've taken a look at this place, and
+it's no fit country for real creatures to go to. Everything's dead, up
+there--no flesh or blood or growing thing anywhere."
+"Never mind; we can't turn back," said Dorothy; "and we don't intend to
+stay there, anyhow."
+"It's dangerous," growled Jim, in a stubborn tone.
+"See here, my good steed," broke in the Wizard, "little Dorothy and I
+have been in many queer countries in our travels, and always escaped
+without harm. We've even been to the marvelous Land of Oz--haven't we,
+Dorothy?--so we don't much care what the Country of the Gargoyles is
+like. Go ahead, Jim, and whatever happens we'll make the best of it."
+"All right," answered the horse; "this is your excursion, and not mine;
+so if you get into trouble don't blame me."
+With this speech he bent forward and dragged the buggy up the remaining
+steps. The others followed and soon they were all standing upon a broad
+platform and gazing at the most curious and startling sight their eyes
+had ever beheld.
+"The Country of the Gargoyles is all wooden!" exclaimed Zeb; and so it
+was. The ground was sawdust and the pebbles scattered around were hard
+knots from trees, worn smooth in course of time. There were odd wooden
+houses, with carved wooden flowers in the front yards. The tree-trunks
+were of coarse wood, but the leaves of the trees were shavings. The
+patches of grass were splinters of wood, and where neither grass nor
+sawdust showed was a solid wooden flooring. Wooden birds fluttered
+among the trees and wooden cows were browsing upon the wooden grass; but
+the most amazing things of all were the wooden people--the creatures
+known as Gargoyles.
+These were very numerous, for the palace was thickly inhabited, and a
+large group of the queer people clustered near, gazing sharply upon the
+strangers who had emerged from the long spiral stairway.
+The Gargoyles were very small of stature, being less than three feet in
+height. Their bodies were round, their legs short and thick and their
+arms extraordinarily long and stout. Their heads were too big for their
+bodies and their faces were decidedly ugly to look upon. Some had long,
+curved noses and chins, small eyes and wide, grinning mouths. Others had
+flat noses, protruding eyes, and ears that were shaped like those of an
+elephant. There were many types, indeed, scarcely two being alike; but
+all were equally disagreeable in appearance. The tops of their heads had
+no hair, but were carved into a variety of fantastic shapes, some having
+a row of points or balls around the top, other designs resembling
+flowers or vegetables, and still others having squares that looked like
+waffles cut criss-cross on their heads. They all wore short wooden wings
+which were fastened to their wooden bodies by means of wooden hinges
+with wooden screws, and with these wings they flew swiftly and
+noiselessly here and there, their legs being of little use to them.
+This noiseless motion was one of the most peculiar things about the
+Gargoyles. They made no sounds at all, either in flying or trying to
+speak, and they conversed mainly by means of quick signals made with
+their wooden fingers or lips. Neither was there any sound to be heard
+anywhere throughout the wooden country. The birds did not sing, nor did
+the cows moo; yet there was more than ordinary activity everywhere.
+The group of these queer creatures which was discovered clustered near
+the stairs at first remained staring and motionless, glaring with evil
+eyes at the intruders who had so suddenly appeared in their land. In
+turn the Wizard and the children, the horse and the kitten, examined the
+Gargoyles with the same silent attention.
+"There's going to be trouble, I'm sure," remarked the horse. "Unhitch
+those tugs, Zeb, and set me free from the buggy, so I can fight
+comfortably."
+"Jim's right," sighed the Wizard. "There's going to be trouble, and my
+sword isn't stout enough to cut up those wooden bodies--so I shall have
+to get out my revolvers."
+He got his satchel from the buggy and, opening it, took out two deadly
+looking revolvers that made the children shrink back in alarm just to
+look at.
+"What harm can the Gurgles do?" asked Dorothy. "They have no weapons to
+hurt us with."
+"Each of their arms is a wooden club," answered the little man, "and I'm
+sure the creatures mean mischief, by the looks of their eyes. Even these
+revolvers can merely succeed in damaging a few of their wooden bodies,
+and after that we will be at their mercy."
+"But why fight at all, in that case?" asked the girl.
+"So I may die with a clear conscience," returned the Wizard, gravely.
+"It's every man's duty to do the best he knows how; and I'm going to do
+it."
+"Wish I had an axe," said Zeb, who by now had unhitched the horse.
+"If we had known we were coming we might have brought along several
+other useful things," responded the Wizard. "But we dropped into this
+adventure rather unexpectedly."
+The Gargoyles had backed away a distance when they heard the sound of
+talking, for although our friends had spoken in low tones their words
+seemed loud in the silence surrounding them. But as soon as the
+conversation ceased the grinning, ugly creatures arose in a flock and
+flew swiftly toward the strangers, their long arms stretched out before
+them like the bowsprits of a fleet of sail-boats. The horse had
+especially attracted their notice, because it was the biggest and
+strangest creature they had ever seen; so it became the center of their
+first attack.
+But Jim was ready for them, and when he saw them coming he turned his
+heels toward them and began kicking out as hard as he could. Crack!
+crash! bang! went his iron-shod hoofs against the wooden bodies of the
+Gargoyles, and they were battered right and left with such force that
+they scattered like straws in the wind. But the noise and clatter seemed
+as dreadful to them as Jim's heels, for all who were able swiftly turned
+and flew away to a great distance. The others picked themselves up from
+the ground one by one and quickly rejoined their fellows, so for a
+moment the horse thought he had won the fight with ease.
+But the Wizard was not so confident.
+"Those wooden things are impossible to hurt," he said, "and all the
+damage Jim has done to them is to knock a few splinters from their noses
+and ears. That cannot make them look any uglier, I'm sure, and it is my
+opinion they will soon renew the attack."
+"What made them fly away?" asked Dorothy.
+"The noise, of course. Don't you remember how the Champion escaped them
+by shouting his battle-cry?"
+"Suppose we escape down the stairs, too," suggested the boy. "We have
+time, just now, and I'd rather face the invis'ble bears than those
+wooden imps."
+"No," returned Dorothy, stoutly, "it won't do to go back, for then we
+would never get home. Let's fight it out."
+"That is what I advise," said the Wizard. "They haven't defeated us yet,
+and Jim is worth a whole army."
+But the Gargoyles were clever enough not to attack the horse the next
+time. They advanced in a great swarm, having been joined by many more of
+their kind, and they flew straight over Jim's head to where the others
+were standing.
+The Wizard raised one of his revolvers and fired into the throng of his
+enemies, and the shot resounded like a clap of thunder in that silent
+place.
+Some of the wooden beings fell flat upon the ground, where they quivered
+and trembled in every limb; but most of them managed to wheel and escape
+again to a distance.
+Zeb ran and picked up one of the Gargoyles that lay nearest to him. The
+top of its head was carved into a crown and the Wizard's bullet had
+struck it exactly in the left eye, which was a hard wooden knot. Half of
+the bullet stuck in the wood and half stuck out, so it had been the jar
+and the sudden noise that had knocked the creature down, more than the
+fact that it was really hurt. Before this crowned Gargoyle had recovered
+himself Zeb had wound a strap several times around its body, confining
+its wings and arms so that it could not move. Then, having tied the
+wooden creature securely, the boy buckled the strap and tossed his
+prisoner into the buggy. By that time the others had all retired.
+CHAPTER 12.
+A WONDERFUL ESCAPE
+For a while the enemy hesitated to renew the attack. Then a few of them
+advanced until another shot from the Wizard's revolver made them
+retreat.
+"That's fine," said Zeb. "We've got 'em on the run now, sure enough."
+"But only for a time," replied the Wizard, shaking his head gloomily.
+"These revolvers are good for six shots each, but when those are gone we
+shall be helpless."
+The Gargoyles seemed to realize this, for they sent a few of their band
+time after time to attack the strangers and draw the fire from the
+little man's revolvers. In this way none of them was shocked by the
+dreadful report more than once, for the main band kept far away and
+each time a new company was sent into the battle. When the Wizard had
+fired all of his twelve bullets he had caused no damage to the enemy
+except to stun a few by the noise, and so he was no nearer to victory
+than in the beginning of the fray.
+"What shall we do now?" asked Dorothy, anxiously.
+"Let's yell--all together," said Zeb.
+"And fight at the same time," added the Wizard. "We will get near Jim,
+so that he can help us, and each one must take some weapon and do the
+best he can. I'll use my sword, although it isn't much account in this
+affair. Dorothy must take her parasol and open it suddenly when the
+wooden folks attack her. I haven't anything for you, Zeb."
+"I'll use the king," said the boy, and pulled his prisoner out of the
+buggy. The bound Gargoyle's arms extended far out beyond its head, so by
+grasping its wrists Zeb found the king made a very good club. The boy
+was strong for one of his years, having always worked upon a farm; so he
+was likely to prove more dangerous to the enemy than the Wizard.
+When the next company of Gargoyles advanced, our adventurers began
+yelling as if they had gone mad. Even the kitten gave a dreadfully
+shrill scream and at the same time Jim the cab-horse neighed loudly.
+This daunted the enemy for a time, but the defenders were soon out of
+breath. Perceiving this, as well as the fact that there were no more of
+the awful "bangs" to come from the revolvers, the Gargoyles advanced in
+a swarm as thick as bees, so that the air was filled with them.
+Dorothy squatted upon the ground and put up her parasol, which nearly
+covered her and proved a great protection. The Wizard's sword-blade
+snapped into a dozen pieces at the first blow he struck against the
+wooden people. Zeb pounded away with the Gargoyle he was using as a club
+until he had knocked down dozens of foes; but at the last they clustered
+so thickly about him that he no longer had room in which to swing his
+arms. The horse performed some wonderful kicking and even Eureka
+assisted when she leaped bodily upon the Gargoyles and scratched and bit
+at them like a wild-cat.
+But all this bravery amounted to nothing at all. The wooden things wound
+their long arms around Zeb and the Wizard and held them fast. Dorothy
+was captured in the same way, and numbers of the Gargoyles clung to
+Jim's legs, so weighting him down that the poor beast was helpless.
+Eureka made a desperate dash to escape and scampered along the ground
+like a streak; but a grinning Gargoyle flew after her and grabbed her
+before she had gone very far.
+All of them expected nothing less than instant death; but to their
+surprise the wooden creatures flew into the air with them and bore them
+far away, over miles and miles of wooden country, until they came to a
+wooden city. The houses of this city had many corners, being square and
+six-sided and eight-sided. They were tower-like in shape and the best of
+them seemed old and weather-worn; yet all were strong and substantial.
+To one of these houses which had neither doors nor windows, but only one
+broad opening far up underneath the roof, the prisoners were brought by
+their captors. The Gargoyles roughly pushed them into the opening, where
+there was a platform, and then flew away and left them. As they had no
+wings the strangers could not fly away, and if they jumped down from
+such a height they would surely be killed. The creatures had sense
+enough to reason that way, and the only mistake they made was in
+supposing the earth people were unable to overcome such ordinary
+difficulties.
+Jim was brought with the others, although it took a good many Gargoyles
+to carry the big beast through the air and land him on the high
+platform, and the buggy was thrust in after him because it belonged to
+the party and the wooden folks had no idea what it was used for or
+whether it was alive or not. When Eureka's captor had thrown the kitten
+after the others the last Gargoyle silently disappeared, leaving our
+friends to breathe freely once more.
+"What an awful fight!" said Dorothy, catching her breath in little
+gasps.
+"Oh, I don't know," purred Eureka, smoothing her ruffled fur with her
+paw; "we didn't manage to hurt anybody, and nobody managed to hurt us."
+"Thank goodness we are together again, even if we are prisoners," sighed
+the little girl.
+"I wonder why they didn't kill us on the spot," remarked Zeb, who had
+lost his king in the struggle.
+"They are probably keeping us for some ceremony," the Wizard answered,
+reflectively; "but there is no doubt they intend to kill us as dead as
+possible in a short time."
+"As dead as poss'ble would be pretty dead, wouldn't it?" asked Dorothy.
+"Yes, my dear. But we have no need to worry about that just now. Let us
+examine our prison and see what it is like."
+The space underneath the roof, where they stood, permitted them to see
+on all sides of the tall building, and they looked with much curiosity
+at the city spread out beneath them. Everything visible was made of
+wood, and the scene seemed stiff and extremely unnatural.
+From their platform a stair descended into the house, and the children
+and the Wizard explored it after lighting a lantern to show them the
+way. Several stories of empty rooms rewarded their search, but nothing
+more; so after a time they came back to the platform again. Had there
+been any doors or windows in the lower rooms, or had not the boards of
+the house been so thick and stout, escape would have been easy; but to
+remain down below was like being in a cellar or the hold of a ship, and
+they did not like the darkness or the damp smell.
+In this country, as in all others they had visited underneath the
+earth's surface, there was no night, a constant and strong light coming
+from some unknown source. Looking out, they could see into some of the
+houses near them, where there were open windows in abundance, and were
+able to mark the forms of the wooden Gargoyles moving about in their
+dwellings.
+"This seems to be their time of rest," observed the Wizard. "All people
+need rest, even if they are made of wood, and as there is no night here
+they select a certain time of the day in which to sleep or doze."
+"I feel sleepy myself," remarked Zeb, yawning.
+"Why, where's Eureka?" cried Dorothy, suddenly.
+They all looked around, but the kitten was no place to be seen.
+"She's gone out for a walk," said Jim, gruffly.
+"Where? On the roof?" asked the girl.
+"No; she just dug her claws into the wood and climbed down the sides of
+this house to the ground."
+"She couldn't climb _down_, Jim," said Dorothy. "To climb means to go
+up."
+"Who said so?" demanded the horse.
+"My school-teacher said so; and she knows a lot, Jim."
+"To 'climb down' is sometimes used as a figure of speech," remarked the
+Wizard.
+"Well, this was a figure of a cat," said Jim, "and she _went_ down,
+anyhow, whether she climbed or crept."
+"Dear me! how careless Eureka is," exclaimed the girl, much distressed.
+"The Gurgles will get her, sure!"
+"Ha, ha!" chuckled the old cab-horse; "they're not 'Gurgles,' little
+maid; they're Gargoyles."
+"Never mind; they'll get Eureka, whatever they're called."
+"No they won't," said the voice of the kitten, and Eureka herself
+crawled over the edge of the platform and sat down quietly upon the
+floor.
+"Wherever have you been, Eureka?" asked Dorothy, sternly.
+"Watching the wooden folks. They're too funny for anything, Dorothy.
+Just now they are all going to bed, and--what do you think?--they unhook
+the hinges of their wings and put them in a corner until they wake up
+again."
+"What, the hinges?"
+"No; the wings."
+"That," said Zeb, "explains why this house is used by them for a prison.
+If any of the Gargoyles act badly, and have to be put in jail, they are
+brought here and their wings unhooked and taken away from them until
+they promise to be good."
+The Wizard had listened intently to what Eureka had said.
+"I wish we had some of those loose wings," he said.
+"Could we fly with them?" asked Dorothy.
+"I think so. If the Gargoyles can unhook the wings then the power to fly
+lies in the wings themselves, and not in the wooden bodies of the people
+who wear them. So, if we had the wings, we could probably fly as well as
+they do--at least while we are in their country and under the spell of
+its magic."
+"But how would it help us to be able to fly?" questioned the girl.
+"Come here," said the little man, and took her to one of the corners of
+the building. "Do you see that big rock standing on the hillside
+yonder?" he continued, pointing with his finger.
+"Yes; it's a good way off, but I can see it," she replied.
+"Well, inside that rock, which reaches up into the clouds, is an archway
+very much like the one we entered when we climbed the spiral stairway
+from the Valley of Voe. I'll get my spy-glass, and then you can see it
+more plainly."
+He fetched a small but powerful telescope, which had been in his
+satchel, and by its aid the little girl clearly saw the opening.
+"Where does it lead to?" she asked.
+"That I cannot tell," said the Wizard; "but we cannot now be far below
+the earth's surface, and that entrance may lead to another stairway that
+will bring us on top of our world again, where we belong. So, if we had
+the wings, and could escape the Gargoyles, we might fly to that rock and
+be saved."
+"I'll get you the wings," said Zeb, who had thoughtfully listened to all
+this. "That is, if the kitten will show me where they are."
+"But how can you get down?" enquired the girl, wonderingly.
+For answer Zeb began to unfasten Jim's harness, strap by strap, and
+to buckle one piece to another until he had made a long leather strip
+that would reach to the ground.
+"I can climb down that, all right," he said.
+"No you can't," remarked Jim, with a twinkle in his round eyes. "You may
+_go_ down, but you can only _climb_ up."
+"Well, I'll climb up when I get back, then," said the boy, with a laugh.
+"Now, Eureka, you'll have to show me the way to those wings."
+"You must be very quiet," warned the kitten; "for if you make the least
+noise the Gargoyles will wake up. They can hear a pin drop."
+"I'm not going to drop a pin," said Zeb.
+He had fastened one end of the strap to a wheel of the buggy, and now he
+let the line dangle over the side of the house.
+"Be careful," cautioned Dorothy, earnestly.
+"I will," said the boy, and let himself slide over the edge.
+The girl and the Wizard leaned over and watched Zeb work his way
+carefully downward, hand over hand, until he stood upon the ground
+below. Eureka clung with her claws to the wooden side of the house and
+let herself down easily. Then together they crept away to enter the low
+doorway of a neighboring dwelling.
+The watchers waited in breathless suspense until the boy again appeared,
+his arms now full of the wooden wings.
+When he came to where the strap was hanging he tied the wings all in a
+bunch to the end of the line, and the Wizard drew them up. Then the line
+was let down again for Zeb to climb up by. Eureka quickly followed him,
+and soon they were all standing together upon the platform, with eight
+of the much prized wooden wings beside them.
+The boy was no longer sleepy, but full of energy and excitement. He put
+the harness together again and hitched Jim to the buggy. Then, with the
+Wizard's help, he tried to fasten some of the wings to the old
+cab-horse.
+This was no easy task, because half of each one of the hinges of the
+wings was missing, it being still fastened to the body of the Gargoyle
+who had used it. However, the Wizard went once more to his
+satchel--which seemed to contain a surprising variety of odds and
+ends--and brought out a spool of strong wire, by means of which they
+managed to fasten four of the wings to Jim's harness, two near his head
+and two near his tail. They were a bit wiggley, but secure enough if
+only the harness held together.
+The other four wings were then fastened to the buggy, two on each side,
+for the buggy must bear the weight of the children and the Wizard as it
+flew through the air.
+These preparations had not consumed a great deal of time, but the
+sleeping Gargoyles were beginning to wake up and move around, and soon
+some of them would be hunting for their missing wings. So the prisoners
+resolved to leave their prison at once.
+They mounted into the buggy, Dorothy holding Eureka safe in her lap. The
+girl sat in the middle of the seat, with Zeb and the Wizard on each side
+of her. When all was ready the boy shook the reins and said:
+"Fly away, Jim!"
+"Which wings must I flop first?" asked the cab-horse, undecidedly.
+"Flop them all together," suggested the Wizard.
+"Some of them are crooked," objected the horse.
+"Never mind; we will steer with the wings on the buggy," said Zeb. "Just
+you light out and make for that rock, Jim; and don't waste any time
+about it, either."
+So the horse gave a groan, flopped its four wings all together, and flew
+away from the platform. Dorothy was a little anxious about the success
+of their trip, for the way Jim arched his long neck and spread out his
+bony legs as he fluttered and floundered through the air was enough to
+make anybody nervous. He groaned, too, as if frightened, and the wings
+creaked dreadfully because the Wizard had forgotten to oil them; but
+they kept fairly good time with the wings of the buggy, so that they
+made excellent progress from the start. The only thing that anyone could
+complain of with justice was the fact that they wobbled first up and
+then down, as if the road were rocky instead of being as smooth as the
+air could make it.
+The main point, however, was that they flew, and flew swiftly, if a bit
+unevenly, toward the rock for which they had headed.
+Some of the Gargoyles saw them, presently, and lost no time in
+collecting a band to pursue the escaping prisoners; so that when Dorothy
+happened to look back she saw them coming in a great cloud that almost
+darkened the sky.
+CHAPTER 13.
+THE DEN OF THE DRAGONETTES
+Our friends had a good start and were able to maintain it, for with
+their eight wings they could go just as fast as could the Gargoyles. All
+the way to the great rock the wooden people followed them, and when Jim
+finally alighted at the mouth of the cavern the pursuers were still some
+distance away.
+"But, I'm afraid they'll catch us yet," said Dorothy, greatly excited.
+"No; we must stop them," declared the Wizard. "Quick Zeb, help me pull
+off these wooden wings!"
+They tore off the wings, for which they had no further use, and the
+Wizard piled them in a heap just outside the entrance to the cavern.
+Then he poured over them all the kerosene oil that was left in his
+oil-can, and lighting a match set fire to the pile.
+The flames leaped up at once and the bonfire began to smoke and roar and
+crackle just as the great army of wooden Gargoyles arrived. The
+creatures drew back at once, being filled with fear and horror; for such
+a dreadful thing as a fire they had never before known in all the
+history of their wooden land.
+Inside the archway were several doors, leading to different rooms built
+into the mountain, and Zeb and the Wizard lifted these wooden doors from
+their hinges and tossed them all on the flames.
+"That will prove a barrier for some time to come," said the little man,
+smiling pleasantly all over his wrinkled face at the success of their
+stratagem. "Perhaps the flames will set fire to all that miserable
+wooden country, and if it does the loss will be very small and the
+Gargoyles never will be missed. But come, my children; let us explore
+the mountain and discover which way we must go in order to escape from
+this cavern, which is getting to be almost as hot as a bake-oven."
+To their disappointment there was within this mountain no regular flight
+of steps by means of which they could mount to the earth's surface. A
+sort of inclined tunnel led upward for a way, and they found the floor
+of it both rough and steep. Then a sudden turn brought them to a narrow
+gallery where the buggy could not pass. This delayed and bothered them
+for a while, because they did not wish to leave the buggy behind them.
+It carried their baggage and was useful to ride in wherever there were
+good roads, and since it had accompanied them so far in their travels
+they felt it their duty to preserve it. So Zeb and the Wizard set to
+work and took off the wheels and the top, and then they put the buggy
+edgewise, so it would take up the smallest space. In this position they
+managed, with the aid of the patient cab-horse, to drag the vehicle
+through the narrow part of the passage. It was not a great distance,
+fortunately, and when the path grew broader they put the buggy together
+again and proceeded more comfortably. But the road was nothing more than
+a series of rifts or cracks in the mountain, and it went zig-zag in
+every direction, slanting first up and then down until they were puzzled
+as to whether they were any nearer to the top of the earth than when
+they had started, hours before.
+"Anyhow," said Dorothy, "we've 'scaped those awful Gurgles, and that's
+_one_ comfort!"
+"Probably the Gargoyles are still busy trying to put out the fire,"
+returned the Wizard. "But even if they succeeded in doing that it
+would be very difficult for them to fly amongst these rocks; so I am
+sure we need fear them no longer."
+Once in a while they would come to a deep crack in the floor, which made
+the way quite dangerous; but there was still enough oil in the lanterns
+to give them light, and the cracks were not so wide but that they were
+able to jump over them. Sometimes they had to climb over heaps of loose
+rock, where Jim could scarcely drag the buggy. At such times Dorothy,
+Zeb and the Wizard all pushed behind, and lifted the wheels over the
+roughest places; so they managed, by dint of hard work, to keep going.
+But the little party was both weary and discouraged when at last, on
+turning a sharp corner, the wanderers found themselves in a vast cave
+arching high over their heads and having a smooth, level floor.
+The cave was circular in shape, and all around its edge, near to the
+ground, appeared groups of dull yellow lights, two of them being always
+side by side. These were motionless at first, but soon began to flicker
+more brightly and to sway slowly from side to side and then up and down.
+"What sort of a place is this?" asked the boy, trying to see more
+clearly through the gloom.
+"I cannot imagine, I'm sure," answered the Wizard, also peering about.
+"Woogh!" snarled Eureka, arching her back until her hair stood straight
+on end; "it's a den of alligators, or crocodiles, or some other dreadful
+creatures! Don't you see their terrible eyes?"
+"Eureka sees better in the dark than we can," whispered Dorothy. "Tell
+us, dear, what do the creatures look like?" she asked, addressing her
+pet.
+"I simply can't describe 'em," answered the kitten, shuddering. "Their
+eyes are like pie-plates and their mouths like coal-scuttles. But their
+bodies don't seem very big."
+"Where are they?" enquired the girl.
+"They are in little pockets all around the edge of this cavern. Oh,
+Dorothy--you can't imagine what horrid things they are! They're uglier
+than the Gargoyles."
+"Tut-tut! be careful how you criticise your neighbors," spoke a rasping
+voice near by. "As a matter of fact you are rather ugly-looking
+creatures yourselves, and I'm sure mother has often told us we were the
+loveliest and prettiest things in all the world."
+Hearing these words our friends turned in the direction of the sound,
+and the Wizard held his lanterns so that their light would flood one of
+the little pockets in the rock.
+"Why, it's a dragon!" he exclaimed.
+"No," answered the owner of the big yellow eyes which were blinking at
+them so steadily; "you are wrong about that. We hope to grow to be
+dragons some day, but just now we're only dragonettes."
+"What's that?" asked Dorothy, gazing fearfully at the great scaley head,
+the yawning mouth and the big eyes.
+"Young dragons, of course; but we are not allowed to call ourselves real
+dragons until we get our full growth," was the reply. "The big dragons
+are very proud, and don't think children amount to much; but mother says
+that some day we will all be very powerful and important."
+"Where is your mother?" asked the Wizard, anxiously looking around.
+"She has gone up to the top of the earth to hunt for our dinner. If she
+has good luck she will bring us an elephant, or a brace of rhinoceri, or
+perhaps a few dozen people to stay our hunger."
+"Oh; are you hungry?" enquired Dorothy, drawing back.
+"Very," said the dragonette, snapping its jaws.
+"And--and--do you eat people?"
+"To be sure, when we can get them. But they've been very scarce for a
+few years and we usually have to be content with elephants or
+buffaloes," answered the creature, in a regretful tone.
+"How old are you?" enquired Zeb, who stared at the yellow eyes as if
+fascinated.
+"Quite young, I grieve to say; and all of my brothers and sisters that
+you see here are practically my own age. If I remember rightly, we were
+sixty-six years old the day before yesterday."
+"But that isn't young!" cried Dorothy, in amazement.
+"No?" drawled the dragonette; "it seems to me very babyish."
+"How old is your mother?" asked the girl.
+"Mother's about two thousand years old; but she carelessly lost track of
+her age a few centuries ago and skipped several hundreds. She's a little
+fussy, you know, and afraid of growing old, being a widow and still in
+her prime."
+"I should think she would be," agreed Dorothy. Then, after a moment's
+thought, she asked: "Are we friends or enemies? I mean, will you be good
+to us, or do you intend to eat us?"
+"As for that, we dragonettes would love to eat you, my child; but
+unfortunately mother has tied all our tails around the rocks at the back
+of our individual caves, so that we can not crawl out to get you. If you
+choose to come nearer we will make a mouthful of you in a wink; but
+unless you do you will remain quite safe."
+There was a regretful accent in the creature's voice, and at the words
+all the other dragonettes sighed dismally.
+Dorothy felt relieved. Presently she asked:
+"Why did your mother tie your tails?"
+"Oh, she is sometimes gone for several weeks on her hunting trips, and
+if we were not tied we would crawl all over the mountain and fight with
+each other and get into a lot of mischief. Mother usually knows what she
+is about, but she made a mistake this time; for you are sure to escape
+us unless you come too near, and you probably won't do that."
+"No, indeed!" said the little girl. "We don't wish to be eaten by such
+awful beasts."
+"Permit me to say," returned the dragonette, "that you are rather
+impolite to call us names, knowing that we cannot resent your insults.
+We consider ourselves very beautiful in appearance, for mother has told
+us so, and she knows. And we are of an excellent family and have a
+pedigree that I challenge any humans to equal, as it extends back about
+twenty thousand years, to the time of the famous Green Dragon of
+Atlantis, who lived in a time when humans had not yet been created. Can
+you match that pedigree, little girl?"
+"Well," said Dorothy, "I was born on a farm in Kansas, and I guess
+that's being just as 'spectable and haughty as living in a cave with
+your tail tied to a rock. If it isn't I'll have to stand it, that's
+all."
+"Tastes differ," murmured the dragonette, slowly drooping its scaley
+eyelids over its yellow eyes, until they looked like half-moons.
+Being reassured by the fact that the creatures could not crawl out of
+their rock-pockets, the children and the Wizard now took time to examine
+them more closely. The heads of the dragonettes were as big as barrels
+and covered with hard, greenish scales that glittered brightly under the
+light of the lanterns. Their front legs, which grew just back of their
+heads, were also strong and big; but their bodies were smaller around
+than their heads, and dwindled away in a long line until their tails
+were slim as a shoe-string. Dorothy thought, if it had taken them
+sixty-six years to grow to this size, that it would be fully a hundred
+years more before they could hope to call themselves dragons, and that
+seemed like a good while to wait to grow up.
+"It occurs to me," said the Wizard, "that we ought to get out of this
+place before the mother dragon comes back."
+"Don't hurry," called one of the dragonettes; "mother will be glad to
+meet you, I'm sure."
+"You may be right," replied the Wizard, "but we're a little particular
+about associating with strangers. Will you kindly tell us which way your
+mother went to get on top the earth?"
+"That is not a fair question to ask us," declared another dragonette.
+"For, if we told you truly, you might escape us altogether; and if we
+told you an untruth we would be naughty and deserve to be punished."
+"Then," decided Dorothy, "we must find our way out the best we can."
+They circled all around the cavern, keeping a good distance away from
+the blinking yellow eyes of the dragonettes, and presently discovered
+that there were two paths leading from the wall opposite to the place
+where they had entered. They selected one of these at a venture and
+hurried along it as fast as they could go, for they had no idea when the
+mother dragon would be back and were very anxious not to make her
+acquaintance.
+Chapter 14.
+OZMA USES THE MAGIC BELT
+For a considerable distance the way led straight upward in a gentle
+incline, and the wanderers made such good progress that they grew
+hopeful and eager, thinking they might see sunshine at any minute. But
+at length they came unexpectedly upon a huge rock that shut off the
+passage and blocked them from proceeding a single step farther.
+This rock was separate from the rest of the mountain and was in motion,
+turning slowly around and around as if upon a pivot. When first they
+came to it there was a solid wall before them; but presently it revolved
+until there was exposed a wide, smooth path across it to the other side.
+This appeared so unexpectedly that they were unprepared to take
+advantage of it at first, and allowed the rocky wall to swing around
+again before they had decided to pass over. But they knew now that there
+was a means of escape and so waited patiently until the path appeared
+for the second time.
+The children and the Wizard rushed across the moving rock and sprang
+into the passage beyond, landing safely though a little out of breath.
+Jim the cab-horse came last, and the rocky wall almost caught him; for
+just as he leaped to the floor of the further passage the wall swung
+across it and a loose stone that the buggy wheels knocked against fell
+into the narrow crack where the rock turned, and became wedged there.
+They heard a crunching, grinding sound, a loud snap, and the turn-table
+came to a stop with its broadest surface shutting off the path from
+which they had come.
+"Never mind," said Zeb, "we don't want to get back, anyhow."
+"I'm not so sure of that," returned Dorothy. "The mother dragon may come
+down and catch us here."
+"It is possible," agreed the Wizard, "if this proves to be the path she
+usually takes. But I have been examining this tunnel, and I do not see
+any signs of so large a beast having passed through it."
+"Then we're all right," said the girl, "for if the dragon went the other
+way she can't poss'bly get to us now."
+"Of course not, my dear. But there is another thing to consider. The
+mother dragon probably knows the road to the earth's surface, and if she
+went the other way then we have come the wrong way," said the Wizard,
+thoughtfully.
+"Dear me!" cried Dorothy. "That would be unlucky, wouldn't it?"
+"Very. Unless this passage also leads to the top of the earth," said
+Zeb. "For my part, if we manage to get out of here I'll be glad it isn't
+the way the dragon goes."
+"So will I," returned Dorothy. "It's enough to have your pedigree flung
+in your face by those saucy dragonettes. No one knows what the mother
+might do."
+They now moved on again, creeping slowly up another steep incline. The
+lanterns were beginning to grow dim, and the Wizard poured the remaining
+oil from one into the other, so that the one light would last longer.
+But their journey was almost over, for in a short time they reached a
+small cave from which there was no further outlet.
+They did not realize their ill fortune at first, for their hearts were
+gladdened by the sight of a ray of sunshine coming through a small crack
+in the roof of the cave, far overhead. That meant that their world--the
+real world--was not very far away, and that the succession of perilous
+adventures they had encountered had at last brought them near the
+earth's surface, which meant home to them. But when the adventurers
+looked more carefully around them they discovered that they were in a
+strong prison from which there was no hope of escape.
+"But we're _almost_ on earth again," cried Dorothy, "for there is the
+sun--the most _beau'ful_ sun that shines!" and she pointed eagerly at
+the crack in the distant roof.
+"Almost on earth isn't being there," said the kitten, in a discontented
+tone. "It wouldn't be possible for even me to get up to that crack--or
+through it if I got there."
+"It appears that the path ends here," announced the Wizard, gloomily.
+"And there is no way to go back," added Zeb, with a low whistle of
+perplexity.
+"I was sure it would come to this, in the end," remarked the old
+cab-horse. "Folks don't fall into the middle of the earth and then get
+back again to tell of their adventures--not in real life. And the whole
+thing has been unnatural because that cat and I are both able to talk
+your language, and to understand the words you say."
+"And so can the nine tiny piglets," added Eureka. "Don't forget them,
+for I may have to eat them, after all."
+"I've heard animals talk before," said Dorothy, "and no harm came of
+it."
+"Were you ever before shut up in a cave, far under the earth, with no
+way of getting out?" enquired the horse, seriously.
+"No," answered Dorothy. "But don't you lose heart, Jim, for I'm sure
+this isn't the end of our story, by any means."
+The reference to the piglets reminded the Wizard that his pets had not
+enjoyed much exercise lately, and must be tired of their prison in his
+pocket. So he sat down upon the floor of the cave, brought the piglets
+out one by one, and allowed them to run around as much as they pleased.
+"My dears," he said to them, "I'm afraid I've got you into a lot of
+trouble, and that you will never again be able to leave this gloomy
+cave."
+"What's wrong?" asked a piglet. "We've been in the dark quite a while,
+and you may as well explain what has happened."
+The Wizard told them of the misfortune that had overtaken the wanderers.
+"Well," said another piglet, "you are a wizard, are you not?"
+"I am," replied the little man.
+"Then you can do a few wizzes and get us out of this hole," declared the
+tiny one, with much confidence.
+"I could if I happened to be a real wizard," returned the master sadly.
+"But I'm not, my piggy-wees; I'm a humbug wizard."
+"Nonsense!" cried several of the piglets, together.
+"You can ask Dorothy," said the little man, in an injured tone.
+"It's true enough," returned the girl, earnestly. "Our friend Oz is
+merely a humbug wizard, for he once proved it to me. He can do several
+very wonderful things--if he knows how. But he can't wiz a single thing
+if he hasn't the tools and machinery to work with."
+"Thank you, my dear, for doing me justice," responded the Wizard,
+gratefully. "To be accused of being a real wizard, when I'm not, is a
+slander I will not tamely submit to. But I am one of the greatest humbug
+wizards that ever lived, and you will realize this when we have all
+starved together and our bones are scattered over the floor of this
+lonely cave."
+"I don't believe we'll realize anything, when it comes to that,"
+remarked Dorothy, who had been deep in thought. "But I'm not going to
+scatter my bones just yet, because I need them, and you prob'ly need
+yours, too."
+"We are helpless to escape," sighed the Wizard.
+"_We_ may be helpless," answered Dorothy, smiling at him, "but there are
+others who can do more than we can. Cheer up, friends. I'm sure Ozma
+will help us."
+"Ozma!" exclaimed the Wizard. "Who is Ozma?"
+"The girl that rules the marvelous Land of Oz," was the reply. "She's a
+friend of mine, for I met her in the Land of Ev, not long ago, and went
+to Oz with her."
+"For the second time?" asked the Wizard, with great interest.
+"Yes. The first time I went to Oz I found you there, ruling the Emerald
+City. After you went up in a balloon, and escaped us, I got back to
+Kansas by means of a pair of magical silver shoes."
+"I remember those shoes," said the little man, nodding. "They once
+belonged to the Wicked Witch. Have you them here with you?"
+"No; I lost them somewhere in the air," explained the child. "But the
+second time I went to the Land of Oz I owned the Nome King's Magic Belt,
+which is much more powerful than were the Silver Shoes."
+"Where is that Magic Belt?" enquired the Wizard, who had listened with
+great interest.
+"Ozma has it; for its powers won't work in a common, ordinary country
+like the United States. Anyone in a fairy country like the Land of Oz
+can do anything with it; so I left it with my friend the Princess Ozma,
+who used it to wish me in Australia with Uncle Henry."
+"And were you?" asked Zeb, astonished at what he heard.
+"Of course; in just a jiffy. And Ozma has an enchanted picture hanging
+in her room that shows her the exact scene where any of her friends may
+be, at any time she chooses. All she has to do is to say: 'I wonder what
+So-and-so is doing,' and at once the picture shows where her friend is
+and what the friend is doing. That's _real_ magic, Mr. Wizard; isn't it?
+Well, every day at four o'clock Ozma has promised to look at me in that
+picture, and if I am in need of help I am to make her a certain sign and
+she will put on the Nome King's Magic Belt and wish me to be with her in
+Oz."
+"Do you mean that Princess Ozma will see this cave in her enchanted
+picture, and see all of us here, and what we are doing?" demanded Zeb.
+"Of course; when it is four o'clock," she replied, with a laugh at his
+startled expression.
+"And when you make a sign she will bring you to her in the Land of Oz?"
+continued the boy.
+"That's it, exactly; by means of the Magic Belt."
+"Then," said the Wizard, "you will be saved, little Dorothy; and I am
+very glad of it. The rest of us will die much more cheerfully when we
+know you have escaped our sad fate."
+"_I_ won't die cheerfully!" protested the kitten. "There's nothing
+cheerful about dying that I could ever see, although they say a cat has
+nine lives, and so must die nine times."
+"Have you ever died yet?" enquired the boy.
+"No, and I'm not anxious to begin," said Eureka.
+"Don't worry, dear," Dorothy exclaimed, "I'll hold you in my arms, and
+take you with me."
+"Take us, too!" cried the nine tiny piglets, all in one breath.
+"Perhaps I can," answered Dorothy. "I'll try."
+"Couldn't you manage to hold me in your arms?" asked the cab-horse.
+Dorothy laughed.
+"I'll do better than that," she promised, "for I can easily save you
+all, once I am myself in the Land of Oz."
+"How?" they asked.
+"By using the Magic Belt. All I need do is to wish you with me, and
+there you'll be--safe in the royal palace!"
+"Good!" cried Zeb.
+"I built that palace, and the Emerald City, too," remarked the Wizard,
+in a thoughtful tone, "and I'd like to see them again, for I was very
+happy among the Munchkins and Winkies and Quadlings and Gillikins."
+"Who are they?" asked the boy.
+"The four nations that inhabit the Land of Oz," was the reply. "I wonder
+if they would treat me nicely if I went there again."
+"Of course they would!" declared Dorothy. "They are still proud of their
+former Wizard, and often speak of you kindly."
+"Do you happen to know whatever became of the Tin Woodman and the
+Scarecrow?" he enquired.
+"They live in Oz yet," said the girl, "and are very important people."
+"And the Cowardly Lion?"
+"Oh, he lives there too, with his friend the Hungry Tiger; and Billina
+is there, because she liked the place better than Kansas, and wouldn't
+go with me to Australia."
+"I'm afraid I don't know the Hungry Tiger and Billina," said the Wizard,
+shaking his head. "Is Billina a girl?"
+"No; she's a yellow hen, and a great friend of mine. You're sure to like
+Billina, when you know her," asserted Dorothy.
+"Your friends sound like a menagerie," remarked Zeb, uneasily.
+"Couldn't you wish me in some safer place than Oz."
+"Don't worry," replied the girl. "You'll just love the folks in Oz, when
+you get acquainted. What time is it, Mr. Wizard?"
+The little man looked at his watch--a big silver one that he carried in
+his vest pocket.
+"Half-past three," he said.
+"Then we must wait for half an hour," she continued; "but it won't take
+long, after that, to carry us all to the Emerald City."
+They sat silently thinking for a time. Then Jim suddenly asked:
+"Are there any horses in Oz?"
+"Only one," replied Dorothy, "and he's a sawhorse."
+"A what?"
+"A sawhorse. Princess Ozma once brought him to life with a witch-powder,
+when she was a boy."
+"Was Ozma once a boy?" asked Zeb, wonderingly.
+"Yes; a wicked witch enchanted her, so she could not rule her kingdom.
+But she's a girl now, and the sweetest, loveliest girl in all the
+world."
+"A sawhorse is a thing they saw boards on," remarked Jim, with a sniff.
+"It is when it's not alive," acknowledged the girl. "But this sawhorse
+can trot as fast as you can, Jim; and he's very wise, too."
+"Pah! I'll race the miserable wooden donkey any day in the week!" cried
+the cab-horse.
+Dorothy did not reply to that. She felt that Jim would know more about
+the Saw-Horse later on.
+The time dragged wearily enough to the eager watchers, but finally the
+Wizard announced that four o'clock had arrived, and Dorothy caught up
+the kitten and began to make the signal that had been agreed upon to the
+far-away, invisible Ozma.
+"Nothing seems to happen," said Zeb, doubtfully.
+"Oh, we must give Ozma time to put on the Magic Belt," replied the girl.
+She had scarcely spoken the words when she suddenly disappeared from the
+cave, and with her went the kitten. There had been no sound of any kind
+and no warning. One moment Dorothy sat beside them with the kitten in
+her lap, and a moment later the horse, the piglets, the Wizard and the
+boy were all that remained in the underground prison.
+"I believe we will soon follow her," announced the Wizard, in a tone of
+great relief; "for I know something about the magic of the fairyland
+that is called the Land of Oz. Let us be ready, for we may be sent for
+any minute."
+He put the piglets safely away in his pocket again and then he and Zeb
+got into the buggy and sat expectantly upon the seat.
+"Will it hurt?" asked the boy, in a voice that trembled a little.
+"Not at all," replied the Wizard. "It will all happen as quick as a
+wink."
+And that was the way it did happen.
+The cab-horse gave a nervous start and Zeb began to rub his eyes to make
+sure he was not asleep. For they were in the streets of a beautiful
+emerald-green city, bathed in a grateful green light that was especially
+pleasing to their eyes, and surrounded by merry faced people in gorgeous
+green-and-gold costumes of many extraordinary designs.
+Before them were the jewel-studded gates of a magnificent palace, and
+now the gates opened slowly as if inviting them to enter the courtyard,
+where splendid flowers were blooming and pretty fountains shot their
+silvery sprays into the air.
+Zeb shook the reins to rouse the cab-horse from his stupor of amazement,
+for the people were beginning to gather around and stare at the
+strangers.
+"Gid-dap!" cried the boy, and at the word Jim slowly trotted into the
+courtyard and drew the buggy along the jewelled driveway to the great
+entrance of the royal palace.
+CHAPTER 15.
+OLD FRIENDS ARE REUNITED
+Many servants dressed in handsome uniforms stood ready to welcome the
+new arrivals, and when the Wizard got out of the buggy a pretty girl in
+a green gown cried out in surprise:
+"Why, it's Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, come back again!"
+The little man looked at her closely and then took both the maiden's
+hands in his and shook them cordially.
+"On my word," he exclaimed, "it's little Jellia Jamb--as pert and pretty
+as ever!"
+"Why not, Mr. Wizard?" asked Jellia, bowing low. "But I'm afraid you
+cannot rule the Emerald City, as you used to, because we now have a
+beautiful Princess whom everyone loves dearly."
+"And the people will not willingly part with her," added a tall soldier
+in a Captain-General's uniform.
+The Wizard turned to look at him.
+"Did you not wear green whiskers at one time?" he asked.
+"Yes," said the soldier; "but I shaved them off long ago, and since then
+I have risen from a private to be the Chief General of the Royal
+Armies."
+"That's nice," said the little man. "But I assure you, my good people,
+that I do not wish to rule the Emerald City," he added, earnestly.
+"In that case you are very welcome!" cried all the servants, and it
+pleased the Wizard to note the respect with which the royal retainers
+bowed before him. His fame had not been forgotten in the Land of Oz, by
+any means.
+"Where is Dorothy?" enquired Zeb, anxiously, as he left the buggy and
+stood beside his friend the little Wizard.
+"She is with the Princess Ozma, in the private rooms of the palace,"
+replied Jellia Jamb. "But she has ordered me to make you welcome and to
+show you to your apartments."
+The boy looked around him with wondering eyes. Such magnificence and
+wealth as was displayed in this palace was more than he had ever dreamed
+of, and he could scarcely believe that all the gorgeous glitter was real
+and not tinsel.
+"What's to become of me?" asked the horse, uneasily. He had seen
+considerable of life in the cities in his younger days, and knew that
+this regal palace was no place for him.
+It perplexed even Jellia Jamb, for a time, to know what to do with the
+animal. The green maiden was much astonished at the sight of so unusual
+a creature, for horses were unknown in this Land; but those who lived in
+the Emerald City were apt to be astonished by queer sights, so after
+inspecting the cab-horse and noting the mild look in his big eyes the
+girl decided not to be afraid of him.
+"There are no stables here," said the Wizard, "unless some have been
+built since I went away."
+"We have never needed them before," answered Jellia; "for the Sawhorse
+lives in a room of the palace, being much smaller and more natural in
+appearance than this great beast you have brought with you."
+"Do you mean that I'm a freak?" asked Jim, angrily.
+"Oh, no," she hastened to say, "there may be many more like you in the
+place you came from, but in Oz any horse but a Sawhorse is unusual."
+This mollified Jim a little, and after some thought the green maiden
+decided to give the cab-horse a room in the palace, such a big building
+having many rooms that were seldom in use.
+So Zeb unharnessed Jim, and several of the servants then led the horse
+around to the rear, where they selected a nice large apartment that he
+could have all to himself.
+Then Jellia said to the Wizard:
+"Your own room--which was back of the great Throne Room--has been vacant
+ever since you left us. Would you like it again?"
+"Yes, indeed!" returned the little man. "It will seem like being at home
+again, for I lived in that room for many, many years."
+He knew the way to it, and a servant followed him, carrying his satchel.
+Zeb was also escorted to a room--so grand and beautiful that he almost
+feared to sit in the chairs or lie upon the bed, lest he might dim their
+splendor. In the closets he discovered many fancy costumes of rich
+velvets and brocades, and one of the attendants told him to dress
+himself in any of the clothes that pleased him and to be prepared to
+dine with the Princess and Dorothy in an hour's time.
+Opening from the chamber was a fine bath-room having a marble tub with
+perfumed water; so the boy, still dazed by the novelty of his
+surroundings, indulged in a good bath and then selected a maroon velvet
+costume with silver buttons to replace his own soiled and much worn
+clothing. There were silk stockings and soft leather slippers with
+diamond buckles to accompany his new costume, and when he was fully
+dressed Zeb looked much more dignified and imposing than ever before in
+his life.
+He was all ready when an attendant came to escort him to the presence of
+the Princess; he followed bashfully and was ushered into a room more
+dainty and attractive than it was splendid. Here he found Dorothy seated
+beside a young girl so marvelously beautiful that the boy stopped
+suddenly with a gasp of admiration.
+But Dorothy sprang up and ran to seize her friend's hand, drawing him
+impulsively toward the lovely Princess, who smiled most graciously upon
+her guest. Then the Wizard entered, and his presence relieved the boy's
+embarrassment. The little man was clothed in black velvet, with many
+sparkling emerald ornaments decorating his breast; but his bald head and
+wrinkled features made him appear more amusing than impressive.
+Ozma had been quite curious to meet the famous man who had built the
+Emerald City and united the Munchkins, Gillikins, Quadlings and Winkies
+into one people; so when they were all four seated at the dinner table
+the Princess said:
+"Please tell me, Mr. Wizard, whether you called yourself Oz after this
+great country, or whether you believe my country is called Oz after you.
+It is a matter that I have long wished to enquire about, because you are
+of a strange race and my own name is Ozma. No one, I am sure, is better
+able to explain this mystery than you."
+"That is true," answered the little Wizard; "therefore it will give me
+pleasure to explain my connection with your country. In the first place,
+I must tell you that I was born in Omaha, and my father, who was a
+politician, named me Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle
+Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, Diggs being the last name because he could
+think of no more to go before it. Taken altogether, it was a dreadfully
+long name to weigh down a poor innocent child, and one of the hardest
+lessons I ever learned was to remember my own name. When I grew up I
+just called myself O. Z., because the other initials were P-I-N-H-E-A-D;
+and that spelled 'pinhead,' which was a reflection on my intelligence."
+"Surely no one could blame you for cutting your name short," said Ozma,
+sympathetically. "But didn't you cut it almost too short?"
+"Perhaps so," replied the Wizard. "When a young man I ran away from home
+and joined a circus. I used to call myself a Wizard, and do tricks of
+ventriloquism."
+"What does that mean?" asked the Princess.
+"Throwing my voice into any object I pleased, to make it appear that the
+object was speaking instead of me. Also I began to make balloon
+ascensions. On my balloon and on all the other articles I used in the
+circus I painted the two initials: 'O. Z.', to show that those things
+belonged to me.
+"One day my balloon ran away with me and brought me across the deserts
+to this beautiful country. When the people saw me come from the sky they
+naturally thought me some superior creature, and bowed down before me. I
+told them I was a Wizard, and showed them some easy tricks that amazed
+them; and when they saw the initials painted on the balloon they called
+me Oz."
+"Now I begin to understand," said the Princess, smiling.
+"At that time," continued the Wizard, busily eating his soup while
+talking, "there were four separate countries in this Land, each one of
+the four being ruled by a Witch. But the people thought my power was
+greater than that of the Witches; and perhaps the Witches thought so
+too, for they never dared oppose me. I ordered the Emerald City to be
+built just where the four countries cornered together, and when it was
+completed I announced myself the Ruler of the Land of Oz, which included
+all the four countries of the Munchkins, the Gillikins, the Winkies and
+the Quadlings. Over this Land I ruled in peace for many years, until I
+grew old and longed to see my native city once again. So when Dorothy
+was first blown to this place by a cyclone I arranged to go away with
+her in a balloon; but the balloon escaped too soon and carried me back
+alone. After many adventures I reached Omaha, only to find that all my
+old friends were dead or had moved away. So, having nothing else to do,
+I joined a circus again, and made my balloon ascensions until the
+earthquake caught me."
+"That is quite a history," said Ozma; "but there is a little more
+history about the Land of Oz that you do not seem to understand--perhaps
+for the reason that no one ever told it you. Many years before you came
+here this Land was united under one Ruler, as it is now, and the Ruler's
+name was always 'Oz', which means in our language 'Great and Good'; or,
+if the Ruler happened to be a woman, her name was always 'Ozma.' But
+once upon a time four Witches leagued together to depose the king and
+rule the four parts of the kingdom themselves; so when the Ruler, my
+grandfather, was hunting one day, one Wicked Witch named Mombi stole him
+and carried him away, keeping him a close prisoner. Then the Witches
+divided up the kingdom, and ruled the four parts of it until you came
+here. That was why the people were so glad to see you, and why they
+thought from your initials that you were their rightful ruler."
+"But, at that time," said the Wizard, thoughtfully, "there were two Good
+Witches and two Wicked Witches ruling in the land."
+"Yes," replied Ozma, "because a good Witch had conquered Mombi in the
+North and Glinda the Good had conquered the evil Witch in the South. But
+Mombi was still my grandfather's jailor, and afterward my father's
+jailor. When I was born she transformed me into a boy, hoping that no
+one would ever recognize me and know that I was the rightful Princess of
+the Land of Oz. But I escaped from her and am now the Ruler of my
+people."
+"I am very glad of that," said the Wizard, "and hope you will consider
+me one of your most faithful and devoted subjects."
+"We owe a great deal to the Wonderful Wizard," continued the Princess,
+"for it was you who built this splendid Emerald City."
+"Your people built it," he answered. "I only bossed the job, as we say
+in Omaha."
+"But you ruled it wisely and well for many years," said she, "and made
+the people proud of your magical art. So, as you are now too old to
+wander abroad and work in a circus, I offer you a home here as long as
+you live. You shall be the Official Wizard of my kingdom, and be treated
+with every respect and consideration."
+"I accept your kind offer with gratitude, gracious Princess," the little
+man said, in a soft voice, and they could all see that tear-drops were
+standing in his keen old eyes. It meant a good deal to him to secure a
+home like this.
+"He's only a humbug Wizard, though," said Dorothy, smiling at him.
+"And that is the safest kind of a Wizard to have," replied Ozma,
+promptly.
+"Oz can do some good tricks, humbug or no humbug," announced Zeb, who
+was now feeling more at ease.
+"He shall amuse us with his tricks tomorrow," said the Princess. "I have
+sent messengers to summon all of Dorothy's old friends to meet her and
+give her welcome, and they ought to arrive very soon, now."
+Indeed, the dinner was no sooner finished than in rushed the Scarecrow,
+to hug Dorothy in his padded arms and tell her how glad he was to see
+her again. The Wizard was also most heartily welcomed by the straw man,
+who was an important personage in the Land of Oz.
+"How are your brains?" enquired the little humbug, as he grasped the
+soft, stuffed hands of his old friend.
+"Working finely," answered the Scarecrow. "I'm very certain, Oz, that
+you gave me the best brains in the world, for I can think with them day
+and night, when all other brains are fast asleep."
+"How long did you rule the Emerald City, after I left here?" was the
+next question.
+"Quite awhile, until I was conquered by a girl named General Jinjur. But
+Ozma soon conquered her, with the help of Glinda the Good, and after
+that I went to live with Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman."
+Just then a loud cackling was heard outside; and, when a servant threw
+open the door with a low bow, a yellow hen strutted in. Dorothy sprang
+forward and caught the fluffy fowl in her arms, uttering at the same
+time a glad cry.
+"Oh, Billina!" she said; "how fat and sleek you've grown."
+"Why shouldn't I?" asked the hen, in a sharp, clear voice. "I live on
+the fat of the land--don't I, Ozma?"
+"You have everything you wish for," said the Princess.
+Around Billina's neck was a string of beautiful pearls, and on her legs
+were bracelets of emeralds. She nestled herself comfortably in Dorothy's
+lap until the kitten gave a snarl of jealous anger and leaped up with a
+sharp claw fiercely bared to strike Billina a blow. But the little girl
+gave the angry kitten such a severe cuff that it jumped down again
+without daring to scratch.
+"How horrid of you, Eureka!" cried Dorothy. "Is that the way to treat my
+friends?"
+"You have queer friends, seems to me," replied the kitten, in a surly
+tone.
+"Seems to me the same way," said Billina, scornfully, "if that beastly
+cat is one of them."
+"Look here!" said Dorothy, sternly. "I won't have any quarrelling in the
+Land of Oz, I can tell you! Everybody lives in peace here, and loves
+everybody else; and unless you two, Billina and Eureka, make up and be
+friends, I'll take my Magic Belt and wish you both home again,
+_immejitly_. So, there!"
+They were both much frightened at the threat, and promised meekly to be
+good. But it was never noticed that they became very warm friends, for
+all of that.
+And now the Tin Woodman arrived, his body most beautifully
+nickle-plated, so that it shone splendidly in the brilliant light of the
+room. The Tin Woodman loved Dorothy most tenderly, and welcomed with joy
+the return of the little old Wizard.
+"Sir," said he to the latter, "I never can thank you enough for the
+excellent heart you once gave me. It has made me many friends, I assure
+you, and it beats as kindly and lovingly today as it ever did."
+"I'm glad to hear that," said the Wizard. "I was afraid it would get
+moldy in that tin body of yours."
+"Not at all," returned Nick Chopper. "It keeps finely, being preserved
+in my air-tight chest."
+Zeb was a little shy when first introduced to these queer people; but
+they were so friendly and sincere that he soon grew to admire them very
+much, even finding some good qualities in the yellow hen. But he became
+nervous again when the next visitor was announced.
+"This," said Princess Ozma, "is my friend Mr. H. M. Woggle-Bug, T. E.,
+who assisted me one time when I was in great distress, and is now the
+Dean of the Royal College of Athletic Science."
+"Ah," said the Wizard; "I'm pleased to meet so distinguished a
+personage."
+"H. M.," said the Woggle-Bug, pompously, "means Highly Magnified; and T.
+E. means Thoroughly Educated. I am, in reality, a very big bug, and
+doubtless the most intelligent being in all this broad domain."
+"How well you disguise it," said the Wizard. "But I don't doubt your
+word in the least."
+"Nobody doubts it, sir," replied the Woggle-Bug, and drawing a book from
+its pocket the strange insect turned its back on the company and sat
+down in a corner to read.
+Nobody minded this rudeness, which might have seemed more impolite in
+one less thoroughly educated; so they straightway forgot him and joined
+in a merry conversation that kept them well amused until bed-time
+arrived.
+CHAPTER 16.
+JIM, THE CAB-HORSE
+Jim the Cab-horse found himself in possession of a large room with a
+green marble floor and carved marble wainscoting, which was so stately
+in its appearance that it would have awed anyone else. Jim accepted it
+as a mere detail, and at his command the attendants gave his coat a good
+rubbing, combed his mane and tail, and washed his hoofs and fetlocks.
+Then they told him dinner would be served directly and he replied that
+they could not serve it too quickly to suit his convenience. First they
+brought him a steaming bowl of soup, which the horse eyed in dismay.
+"Take that stuff away!" he commanded. "Do you take me for a
+salamander?"
+They obeyed at once, and next served a fine large turbot on a silver
+platter, with drawn gravey poured over it.
+"Fish!" cried Jim, with a sniff. "Do you take me for a tom-cat? Away
+with it!"
+The servants were a little discouraged, but soon they brought in a great
+tray containing two dozen nicely roasted quail on toast.
+"Well, well!" said the horse, now thoroughly provoked. "Do you take me
+for a weasel? How stupid and ignorant you are, in the Land of Oz, and
+what dreadful things you feed upon! Is there nothing that is decent to
+eat in this palace?"
+The trembling servants sent for the Royal Steward, who came in haste and
+said:
+"What would your Highness like for dinner?"
+"Highness!" repeated Jim, who was unused to such titles.
+"You are at least six feet high, and that is higher than any other
+animal in this country," said the Steward.
+"Well, my Highness would like some oats," declared the horse.
+"Oats? We have no whole oats," the Steward replied, with much
+defference. "But there is any quantity of oatmeal, which we often cook
+for breakfast. Oatmeal is a breakfast dish," added the Steward, humbly.
+"I'll make it a dinner dish," said Jim. "Fetch it on, but don't cook it,
+as you value your life."
+You see, the respect shown the worn-out old cab-horse made him a little
+arrogant, and he forgot he was a guest, never having been treated
+otherwise than as a servant since the day he was born, until his arrival
+in the Land of Oz. But the royal attendants did not heed the animal's
+ill temper. They soon mixed a tub of oatmeal with a little water, and
+Jim ate it with much relish.
+Then the servants heaped a lot of rugs upon the floor and the old horse
+slept on the softest bed he had ever known in his life.
+In the morning, as soon as it was daylight, he resolved to take a walk
+and try to find some grass for breakfast; so he ambled calmly through
+the handsome arch of the doorway, turned the corner of the palace,
+wherein all seemed asleep, and came face to face with the Sawhorse.
+Jim stopped abruptly, being startled and amazed. The Sawhorse stopped at
+the same time and stared at the other with its queer protruding eyes,
+which were mere knots in the log that formed its body. The legs of the
+Sawhorse were four sticks driven into holes bored in the log; its tail
+was a small branch that had been left by accident and its mouth a place
+chopped in one end of the body which projected a little and served as
+a head. The ends of the wooden legs were shod with plates of solid gold,
+and the saddle of the Princess Ozma, which was of red leather set with
+sparkling diamonds, was strapped to the clumsy body.
+Jim's eyes stuck out as much as those of the Sawhorse, and he stared at
+the creature with his ears erect and his long head drawn back until it
+rested against his arched neck.
+In this comical position the two horses circled slowly around each other
+for a while, each being unable to realize what the singular thing might
+be which it now beheld for the first time. Then Jim exclaimed:
+"For goodness sake, what sort of a being are you?"
+"I'm a Sawhorse," replied the other.
+"Oh; I believe I've heard of you," said the cab-horse; "but you are
+unlike anything that I expected to see."
+"I do not doubt it," the Sawhorse observed, with a tone of pride. "I am
+considered quite unusual."
+"You are, indeed. But a rickety wooden thing like you has no right to be
+alive."
+"I couldn't help it," returned the other, rather crestfallen. "Ozma
+sprinkled me with a magic powder, and I just had to live. I know I'm not
+much account; but I'm the only horse in all the Land of Oz, so they
+treat me with great respect."
+"You, a horse!"
+"Oh, not a real one, of course. There are no real horses here at all.
+But I'm a splendid imitation of one."
+Jim gave an indignant neigh.
+"Look at me!" he cried. "Behold a real horse!"
+The wooden animal gave a start, and then examined the other intently.
+"Is it possible that you are a Real Horse?" he murmured.
+"Not only possible, but true," replied Jim, who was gratified by the
+impression he had created. "It is proved by my fine points. For example,
+look at the long hairs on my tail, with which I can whisk away the
+flies."
+"The flies never trouble me," said the Saw-Horse.
+"And notice my great strong teeth, with which I nibble the grass."
+"It is not necessary for me to eat," observed the Saw-horse.
+"Also examine my broad chest, which enables me to draw deep, full
+breaths," said Jim, proudly.
+"I have no need to breathe," returned the other.
+"No; you miss many pleasures," remarked the cab-horse, pityingly. "You
+do not know the relief of brushing away a fly that has bitten you, nor
+the delight of eating delicious food, nor the satisfaction of drawing a
+long breath of fresh, pure air. You may be an imitation of a horse, but
+you're a mighty poor one."
+"Oh, I cannot hope ever to be like you," sighed the Sawhorse. "But I am
+glad to meet at last a Real Horse. You are certainly the most beautiful
+creature I ever beheld."
+This praise won Jim completely. To be called beautiful was a novelty in
+his experience. Said he:
+"Your chief fault, my friend, is in being made of wood, and that I
+suppose you cannot help. Real horses, like myself, are made of flesh and
+blood and bones."
+"I can see the bones all right," replied the Sawhorse, "and they are
+admirable and distinct. Also I can see the flesh. But the blood, I
+suppose, is tucked away inside."
+"Exactly," said Jim.
+"What good is it?" asked the Sawhorse.
+Jim did not know, but he would not tell the Sawhorse that.
+"If anything cuts me," he replied, "the blood runs out to show where I
+am cut. You, poor thing! cannot even bleed when you are hurt."
+"But I am never hurt," said the Sawhorse. "Once in a while I get broken
+up some, but I am easily repaired and put in good order again. And I
+never feel a break or a splinter in the least."
+Jim was almost tempted to envy the wooden horse for being unable to feel
+pain; but the creature was so absurdly unnatural that he decided he
+would not change places with it under any circumstances.
+"How did you happen to be shod with gold?" he asked.
+"Princess Ozma did that," was the reply; "and it saves my legs from
+wearing out. We've had a good many adventures together, Ozma and I, and
+she likes me."
+The cab-horse was about to reply when suddenly he gave a start and a
+neigh of terror and stood trembling like a leaf. For around the corner
+had come two enormous savage beasts, treading so lightly that they were
+upon him before he was aware of their presence. Jim was in the act of
+plunging down the path to escape when the Sawhorse cried out:
+"Stop, my brother! Stop, Real Horse! These are friends, and will do you
+no harm."
+Jim hesitated, eyeing the beasts fearfully. One was an enormous Lion
+with clear, intelligent eyes, a tawney mane bushy and well kept, and a
+body like yellow plush. The other was a great Tiger with purple stripes
+around his lithe body, powerful limbs, and eyes that showed through the
+half closed lids like coals of fire. The huge forms of these monarchs of
+the forest and jungle were enough to strike terror to the stoutest
+heart, and it is no wonder Jim was afraid to face them.
+But the Sawhorse introduced the stranger in a calm tone, saying,
+"This, noble Horse, is my friend the Cowardly Lion, who is the valiant
+King of the Forest, but at the same time a faithful vassal of Princess
+Ozma. And this is the Hungry Tiger, the terror of the jungle, who longs
+to devour fat babies but is prevented by his conscience from doing so.
+These royal beasts are both warm friends of little Dorothy and have come
+to the Emerald City this morning to welcome her to our fairyland."
+Hearing these words Jim resolved to conquer his alarm. He bowed his head
+with as much dignity as he could muster toward the savage looking
+beasts, who in return nodded in a friendly way.
+"Is not the Real Horse a beautiful animal?" asked the Sawhorse
+admiringly.
+"That is doubtless a matter of taste," returned the Lion. "In the forest
+he would be thought ungainly, because his face is stretched out and his
+neck is uselessly long. His joints, I notice, are swollen and overgrown,
+and he lacks flesh and is old in years."
+"And dreadfully tough," added the Hungry Tiger, in a sad voice. "My
+conscience would never permit me to eat so tough a morsel as the Real
+Horse."
+"I'm glad of that," said Jim; "for I, also, have a conscience, and it
+tells me not to crush in your skull with a blow of my powerful hoof."
+If he thought to frighten the striped beast by such language he was
+mistaken. The Tiger seemed to smile, and winked one eye slowly.
+"You have a good conscience, friend Horse," it said, "and if you attend
+to its teachings it will do much to protect you from harm. Some day I
+will let you try to crush in my skull, and afterward you will know more
+about tigers than you do now."
+"Any friend of Dorothy," remarked the Cowardly Lion, "must be our
+friend, as well. So let us cease this talk of skull crushing and
+converse upon more pleasant subjects. Have you breakfasted, Sir Horse?"
+"Not yet," replied Jim. "But here is plenty of excellent clover, so if
+you will excuse me I will eat now."
+"He's a vegetarian," remarked the Tiger, as the horse began to munch the
+clover. "If I could eat grass I would not need a conscience, for nothing
+could then tempt me to devour babies and lambs."
+Just then Dorothy, who had risen early and heard the voices of the
+animals, ran out to greet her old friends. She hugged both the Lion and
+the Tiger with eager delight, but seemed to love the King of Beasts a
+little better than she did his hungry friend, having known him longer.
+By the time they had indulged in a good talk and Dorothy had told them
+all about the awful earthquake and her recent adventures, the breakfast
+bell rang from the palace and the little girl went inside to join her
+human comrades. As she entered the great hall a voice called out, in a
+rather harsh tone:
+"What! are _you_ here again?"
+"Yes, I am," she answered, looking all around to see where the voice
+came from.
+"What brought you back?" was the next question, and Dorothy's eye rested
+on an antlered head hanging on the wall just over the fireplace, and
+caught its lips in the act of moving.
+"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "I thought you were stuffed."
+"So I am," replied the head. "But once on a time I was part of the Gump,
+which Ozma sprinkled with the Powder of Life. I was then for a time the
+Head of the finest Flying Machine that was ever known to exist, and we
+did many wonderful things. Afterward the Gump was taken apart and I was
+put back on this wall; but I can still talk when I feel in the mood,
+which is not often."
+"It's very strange," said the girl. "What were you when you were first
+alive?"
+"That I have forgotten," replied the Gump's Head, "and I do not think it
+is of much importance. But here comes Ozma; so I'd better hush up, for
+the Princess doesn't like me to chatter since she changed her name from
+Tip to Ozma."
+Just then the girlish Ruler of Oz opened the door and greeted Dorothy
+with a good-morning kiss. The little Princess seemed fresh and rosy and
+in good spirits.
+"Breakfast is served, dear," she said, "and I am hungry. So don't let us
+keep it waiting a single minute."
+
+CHAPTER 17.
+THE NINE TINY PIGLETS
+After breakfast Ozma announced that she had ordered a holiday to be
+observed throughout the Emerald City, in honor of her visitors. The
+people had learned that their old Wizard had returned to them and all
+were anxious to see him again, for he had always been a rare favorite.
+So first there was to be a grand procession through the streets, after
+which the little old man was requested to perform some of his wizardries
+in the great Throne Room of the palace. In the afternoon there were to
+be games and races.
+The procession was very imposing. First came the Imperial Cornet Band of
+Oz, dressed in emerald velvet uniforms with slashes of pea-green satin
+and buttons of immense cut emeralds. They played the National air
+called "The Oz Spangled Banner," and behind them were the standard
+bearers with the Royal flag. This flag was divided into four quarters,
+one being colored sky-blue, another pink, a third lavender and a fourth
+white. In the center was a large emerald-green star, and all over the
+four quarters were sewn spangles that glittered beautifully in the
+sunshine. The colors represented the four countries of Oz, and the green
+star the Emerald City.
+Just behind the royal standard-bearers came the Princess Ozma in her
+royal chariot, which was of gold encrusted with emeralds and diamonds
+set in exquisite designs. The chariot was drawn on this occasion by the
+Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, who were decorated with immense pink
+and blue bows. In the chariot rode Ozma and Dorothy, the former in
+splendid raiment and wearing her royal coronet, while the little Kansas
+girl wore around her waist the Magic Belt she had once captured from the
+Nome King.
+Following the chariot came the Scarecrow mounted on the Sawhorse, and
+the people cheered him almost as loudly as they did their lovely Ruler.
+Behind him stalked with regular, jerky steps, the famous machine-man
+called Tik-tok, who had been wound up by Dorothy for the occasion.
+Tik-tok moved by clockwork, and was made all of burnished copper. He
+really belonged to the Kansas girl, who had much respect for his
+thoughts after they had been properly wound and set going; but as the
+copper man would be useless in any place but a fairy country Dorothy had
+left him in charge of Ozma, who saw that he was suitably cared for.
+There followed another band after this, which was called the Royal Court
+Band, because the members all lived in the palace. They wore white
+uniforms with real diamond buttons and played "What is Oz without Ozma"
+very sweetly.
+Then came Professor Woggle-Bug, with a group of students from the Royal
+College of Scientific Athletics. The boys wore long hair and striped
+sweaters and yelled their college yell every other step they took, to
+the great satisfaction of the populace, which was glad to have this
+evidence that their lungs were in good condition.
+The brilliantly polished Tin Woodman marched next, at the head of the
+Royal Army of Oz which consisted of twenty-eight officers, from Generals
+down to Captains. There were no privates in the army because all were so
+courageous and skillful that they had been promoted one by one until
+there were no privates left. Jim and the buggy followed, the old
+cab-horse being driven by Zeb while the Wizard stood up on the seat and
+bowed his bald head right and left in answer to the cheers of the
+people, who crowded thick about him.
+Taken altogether the procession was a grand success, and when it had
+returned to the palace the citizens crowded into the great Throne Room
+to see the Wizard perform his tricks.
+The first thing the little humbug did was to produce a tiny white piglet
+from underneath his hat and pretend to pull it apart, making two. This
+act he repeated until all of the nine tiny piglets were visible, and
+they were so glad to get out of his pocket that they ran around in a
+very lively manner. The pretty little creatures would have been a
+novelty anywhere, so the people were as amazed and delighted at their
+appearance as even the Wizard could have desired. When he had made them
+all disappear again Ozma declared she was sorry they were gone, for she
+wanted one of them to pet and play with. So the Wizard pretended to take
+one of the piglets out of the hair of the Princess (while really he
+slyly took it from his inside pocket) and Ozma smiled joyously as the
+creature nestled in her arms, and she promised to have an emerald collar
+made for its fat neck and to keep the little squealer always at hand to
+amuse her.
+Afterward it was noticed that the Wizard always performed his famous
+trick with eight piglets, but it seemed to please the people just as
+well as if there had been nine of them.
+In his little room back of the Throne Room the Wizard had found a lot of
+things he had left behind him when he went away in the balloon, for no
+one had occupied the apartment in his absence. There was enough material
+there to enable him to prepare several new tricks which he had learned
+from some of the jugglers in the circus, and he had passed part of the
+night in getting them ready. So he followed the trick of the nine tiny
+piglets with several other wonderful feats that greatly delighted his
+audience and the people did not seem to care a bit whether the little
+man was a humbug Wizard or not, so long as he succeeded in amusing them.
+They applauded all his tricks and at the end of the performance begged
+him earnestly not to go away again and leave them.
+"In that case," said the little man, gravely, "I will cancel all of my
+engagements before the crowned heads of Europe and America and devote
+myself to the people of Oz, for I love you all so well that I can deny
+you nothing."
+After the people had been dismissed with this promise our friends joined
+Princess Ozma at an elaborate luncheon in the palace, where even the
+Tiger and the Lion were sumptuously fed and Jim the Cab-horse ate his
+oatmeal out of a golden bowl with seven rows of rubies, sapphires and
+diamonds set around the rim of it.
+In the afternoon they all went to a great field outside the city gates
+where the games were to be held. There was a beautiful canopy for Ozma
+and her guests to sit under and watch the people run races and jump and
+wrestle. You may be sure the folks of Oz did their best with such a
+distinguished company watching them, and finally Zeb offered to wrestle
+with a little Munchkin who seemed to be the champion. In appearance he
+was twice as old as Zeb, for he had long pointed whiskers and wore a
+peaked hat with little bells all around the brim of it, which tinkled
+gaily as he moved. But although the Munchkin was hardly tall enough to
+come to Zeb's shoulder he was so strong and clever that he laid the boy
+three times on his back with apparent ease.
+Zeb was greatly astonished at his defeat, and when the pretty Princess
+joined her people in laughing at him he proposed a boxing-match with the
+Munchkin, to which the little Ozite readily agreed. But the first time
+that Zeb managed to give him a sharp box on the ears the Munchkin sat
+down upon the ground and cried until the tears ran down his whiskers,
+because he had been hurt. This made Zeb laugh, in turn, and the boy
+felt comforted to find that Ozma laughed as merrily at her weeping
+subject as she had at him.
+Just then the Scarecrow proposed a race between the Sawhorse and the
+Cab-horse; and although all the others were delighted at the suggestion
+the Sawhorse drew back, saying:
+"Such a race would not be fair."
+"Of course not," added Jim, with a touch of scorn; "those little wooden
+legs of yours are not half as long as my own."
+"It isn't that," said the Sawhorse, modestly; "but I never tire, and you
+do."
+"Bah!" cried Jim, looking with great disdain at the other; "do you
+imagine for an instant that such a shabby imitation of a horse as you
+are can run as fast as I?"
+"I don't know, I'm sure," replied the Sawhorse.
+"That is what we are trying to find out," remarked the Scarecrow. "The
+object of a race is to see who can win it--or at least that is what my
+excellent brains think."
+"Once, when I was young," said Jim, "I was a race horse, and defeated
+all who dared run against me. I was born in Kentucky, you know, where
+all the best and most aristocratic horses come from."
+"But you're old, now, Jim," suggested Zeb.
+"Old! Why, I feel like a colt today," replied Jim. "I only wish there
+was a real horse here for me to race with. I'd show the people a fine
+sight, I can tell you."
+"Then why not race with the Sawhorse?" enquired the Scarecrow.
+"He's afraid," said Jim.
+"Oh, no," answered the Sawhorse. "I merely said it wasn't fair. But if
+my friend the Real Horse is willing to undertake the race I am quite
+ready."
+So they unharnessed Jim and took the saddle off the Sawhorse, and the
+two queerly matched animals were stood side by side for the start.
+"When I say 'Go!'" Zeb called to them, "you must dig out and race until
+you reach those three trees you see over yonder. Then circle 'round them
+and come back again. The first one that passes the place where the
+Princess sits shall be named the winner. Are you ready?"
+"I suppose I ought to give the wooden dummy a good start of me," growled
+Jim.
+"Never mind that," said the Sawhorse. "I'll do the best I can."
+"Go!" cried Zeb; and at the word the two horses leaped forward and the
+race was begun.
+Jim's big hoofs pounded away at a great rate, and although he did not
+look very graceful he ran in a way to do credit to his Kentucky
+breeding. But the Sawhorse was swifter than the wind. Its wooden legs
+moved so fast that their twinkling could scarcely be seen, and
+although so much smaller than the cab-horse it covered the ground much
+faster. Before they had reached the trees the Sawhorse was far ahead,
+and the wooden animal returned to the starting place and was being
+lustily cheered by the Ozites before Jim came panting up to the canopy
+where the Princess and her friends were seated.
+I am sorry to record the fact that Jim was not only ashamed of his
+defeat but for a moment lost control of his temper. As he looked at the
+comical face of the Sawhorse he imagined that the creature was laughing
+at him; so in a fit of unreasonable anger he turned around and made a
+vicious kick that sent his rival tumbling head over heels upon the
+ground, and broke off one of its legs and its left ear.
+An instant later the Tiger crouched and launched its huge body through
+the air swift and resistless as a ball from a cannon. The beast struck
+Jim full on his shoulder and sent the astonished cab-horse rolling over
+and over, amid shouts of delight from the spectators, who had been
+horrified by the ungracious act he had been guilty of.
+When Jim came to himself and sat upon his haunches he found the Cowardly
+Lion crouched on one side of him and the Hungry Tiger on the other, and
+their eyes were glowing like balls of fire.
+"I beg your pardon, I'm sure," said Jim, meekly. "I was wrong to kick
+the Sawhorse, and I am sorry I became angry at him. He has won the race,
+and won it fairly; but what can a horse of flesh do against a tireless
+beast of wood?"
+Hearing this apology the Tiger and the Lion stopped lashing their tails
+and retreated with dignified steps to the side of the Princess.
+"No one must injure one of our friends in our presence," growled the
+Lion; and Zeb ran to Jim and whispered that unless he controlled his
+temper in the future he would probably be torn to pieces.
+Then the Tin Woodman cut a straight and strong limb from a tree with his
+gleaming axe and made a new leg and a new ear for the Sawhorse; and when
+they had been securely fastened in place Princess Ozma took the coronet
+from her own head and placed it upon that of the winner of the race.
+Said she:
+"My friend, I reward you for your swiftness by proclaiming you Prince of
+Horses, whether of wood or of flesh; and hereafter all other horses--in
+the Land of Oz, at least--must be considered imitations, and you the
+real Champion of your race."
+There was more applause at this, and then Ozma had the jewelled saddle
+replaced upon the Sawhorse and herself rode the victor back to the city
+at the head of the grand procession.
+"I ought to be a fairy," grumbled Jim, as he slowly drew the buggy home;
+"for to be just an ordinary horse in a fairy country is to be of no
+account whatever. It's no place for us, Zeb."
+"It's lucky we got here, though," said the boy; and Jim thought of the
+dark cave, and agreed with him.
+CHAPTER 18.
+THE TRIAL OF EUREKA THE KITTEN
+Several days of festivity and merry-making followed, for such old
+friends did not often meet and there was much to be told and talked over
+between them, and many amusements to be enjoyed in this delightful
+country.
+Ozma was happy to have Dorothy beside her, for girls of her own age with
+whom it was proper for the Princess to associate were very few, and
+often the youthful Ruler of Oz was lonely for lack of companionship.
+It was the third morning after Dorothy's arrival, and she was sitting
+with Ozma and their friends in a reception room, talking over old times,
+when the Princess said to her maid:
+"Please go to my boudoir, Jellia, and get the white piglet I left on the
+dressing-table. I want to play with it."
+Jellia at once departed on the errand, and she was gone so long that
+they had almost forgotten her mission when the green robed maiden
+returned with a troubled face.
+"The piglet is not there, your Highness," said she.
+"Not there!" exclaimed Ozma. "Are you sure?"
+"I have hunted in every part of the room," the maid replied.
+"Was not the door closed?" asked the Princess.
+"Yes, your Highness; I am sure it was; for when I opened it Dorothy's
+white kitten crept out and ran up the stairs."
+Hearing this, Dorothy and the Wizard exchanged startled glances, for
+they remembered how often Eureka had longed to eat a piglet. The little
+girl jumped up at once.
+"Come, Ozma," she said, anxiously; "let us go ourselves to search for
+the piglet."
+So the two went to the dressing-room of the Princess and searched
+carefully in every corner and among the vases and baskets and ornaments
+that stood about the pretty boudoir. But not a trace could they find of
+the tiny creature they sought.
+Dorothy was nearly weeping, by this time, while Ozma was angry and
+indignant. When they returned to the others the Princess said:
+"There is little doubt that my pretty piglet has been eaten by that
+horrid kitten, and if that is true the offender must be punished."
+"I don't b'lieve Eureka would do such a dreadful thing!" cried Dorothy,
+much distressed. "Go and get my kitten, please, Jellia, and we'll hear
+what she has to say about it."
+The green maiden hastened away, but presently returned and said:
+"The kitten will not come. She threatened to scratch my eyes out if I
+touched her."
+"Where is she?" asked Dorothy.
+"Under the bed in your own room," was the reply.
+So Dorothy ran to her room and found the kitten under the bed.
+"Come here, Eureka!" she said.
+"I won't," answered the kitten, in a surly voice.
+"Oh, Eureka! Why are you so bad?"
+The kitten did not reply.
+"If you don't come to me, right away," continued Dorothy, getting
+provoked, "I'll take my Magic Belt and wish you in the Country of the
+Gurgles."
+"Why do you want me?" asked Eureka, disturbed by this threat.
+"You must go to Princess Ozma. She wants to talk to you."
+"All right," returned the kitten, creeping out. "I'm not afraid of
+Ozma--or anyone else."
+Dorothy carried her in her arms back to where the others sat in grieved
+and thoughtful silence.
+"Tell me, Eureka," said the Princess, gently: "did you eat my pretty
+piglet?"
+"I won't answer such a foolish question," asserted Eureka, with a snarl.
+"Oh, yes you will, dear," Dorothy declared. "The piglet is gone, and you
+ran out of the room when Jellia opened the door. So, if you are
+innocent, Eureka, you must tell the Princess how you came to be in her
+room, and what has become of the piglet."
+"Who accuses me?" asked the kitten, defiantly.
+"No one," answered Ozma. "Your actions alone accuse you. The fact is
+that I left my little pet in my dressing-room lying asleep upon the
+table; and you must hove stolen in without my knowing it. When next the
+door was opened you ran out and hid yourself--and the piglet was gone."
+"That's none of my business," growled the kitten.
+"Don't be impudent, Eureka," admonished Dorothy.
+"It is you who are impudent," said Eureka, "for accusing me of such a
+crime when you can't prove it except by guessing."
+Ozma was now greatly incensed by the kitten's conduct. She summoned her
+Captain-General, and when the long, lean officer appeared she said:
+"Carry this cat away to prison, and keep her in safe confinement until
+she is tried by law for the crime of murder."
+So the Captain-General took Eureka from the arms of the now weeping
+Dorothy and in spite of the kitten's snarls and scratches carried it
+away to prison.
+"What shall we do now?" asked the Scarecrow, with a sigh, for such a
+crime had cast a gloom over all the company.
+"I will summon the Court to meet in the Throne Room at three o'clock,"
+replied Ozma. "I myself will be the judge, and the kitten shall have a
+fair trial."
+"What will happen if she is guilty?" asked Dorothy.
+"She must die," answered the Princess.
+"Nine times?" enquired the Scarecrow.
+"As many times as is necessary," was the reply. "I will ask the Tin
+Woodman to defend the prisoner, because he has such a kind heart I am
+sure he will do his best to save her. And the Woggle-Bug shall be the
+Public Accuser, because he is so learned that no one can deceive him."
+"Who will be the jury?" asked the Tin Woodman.
+"There ought to be several animals on the jury," said Ozma, "because
+animals understand each other better than we people understand them.
+So the jury shall consist of the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, Jim
+the Cab-horse, the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Wizard, Tik-tok the
+Machine Man, the Sawhorse and Zeb of Hugson's Ranch. That makes the nine
+which the law requires, and all my people shall be admitted to hear the
+testimony."
+They now separated to prepare for the sad ceremony; for whenever an
+appeal is made to law sorrow is almost certain to follow--even in a
+fairyland like Oz. But it must be stated that the people of that Land
+were generally so well-behaved that there was not a single lawyer
+amongst them, and it had been years since any Ruler had sat in judgment
+upon an offender of the law. The crime of murder being the most dreadful
+crime of all, tremendous excitement prevailed in the Emerald City when
+the news of Eureka's arrest and trial became known.
+The Wizard, when he returned to his own room, was exceedingly
+thoughtful. He had no doubt Eureka had eaten his piglet, but he realized
+that a kitten cannot be depended upon at all times to act properly,
+since its nature is to destroy small animals and even birds for food,
+and the tame cat that we keep in our houses today is descended from the
+wild cat of the jungle--a very ferocious creature, indeed. The Wizard
+knew that if Dorothy's pet was found guilty and condemned to death the
+little girl would be made very unhappy; so, although he grieved over the
+piglet's sad fate as much as any of them, he resolved to save Eureka's
+life.
+Sending for the Tin Woodman the Wizard took him into a corner and
+whispered:
+"My friend, it is your duty to defend the white kitten and try to save
+her, but I fear you will fail because Eureka has long wished to eat a
+piglet, to my certain knowledge, and my opinion is that she has been
+unable to resist the temptation. Yet her disgrace and death would not
+bring back the piglet, but only serve to make Dorothy unhappy. So I
+intend to prove the kitten's innocence by a trick."
+He drew from his inside pocket one of the eight tiny piglets that were
+remaining and continued:
+"This creature you must hide in some safe place, and if the jury decides
+that Eureka is guilty you may then produce this piglet and claim it is
+the one that was lost. All the piglets are exactly alike, so no one can
+dispute your word. This deception will save Eureka's life, and then we
+may all be happy again."
+"I do not like to deceive my friends," replied the Tin Woodman; "still,
+my kind heart urges me to save Eureka's life, and I can usually trust my
+heart to do the right thing. So I will do as you say, friend Wizard."
+After some thought he placed the little pig inside his funnel-shaped
+hat, and then put the hat upon his head and went back to his room to
+think over his speech to the jury.
+CHAPTER 19.
+THE WIZARD PERFORMS ANOTHER TRICK
+At three o'clock the Throne Room was crowded with citizens, men, women
+and children being eager to witness the great trial.
+Princess Ozma, dressed in her most splendid robes of state, sat in the
+magnificent emerald throne, with her jewelled sceptre in her hand and
+her sparkling coronet upon her fair brow. Behind her throne stood the
+twenty-eight officers of her army and many officials of the royal
+household. At her right sat the queerly assorted Jury--animals, animated
+dummies and people--all gravely prepared to listen to what was said. The
+kitten had been placed in a large cage just before the throne, where she
+sat upon her haunches and gazed through the bars at the crowds around
+her, with seeming unconcern.
+And now, at a signal from Ozma, the Woggle-Bug arose and addressed the
+jury. His tone was pompous and he strutted up and down in an absurd
+attempt to appear dignified.
+"Your Royal Highness and Fellow Citizens," he began; "the small cat you
+see a prisoner before you is accused of the crime of first murdering and
+then eating our esteemed Ruler's fat piglet--or else first eating and
+then murdering it. In either case a grave crime has been committed which
+deserves a grave punishment."
+"Do you mean my kitten must be put in a grave?" asked Dorothy.
+"Don't interrupt, little girl," said the Woggle-Bug. "When I get my
+thoughts arranged in good order I do not like to have anything upset
+them or throw them into confusion."
+"If your thoughts were any good they wouldn't become confused," remarked
+the Scarecrow, earnestly. "My thoughts are always----"
+"Is this a trial of thoughts, or of kittens?" demanded the Woggle-Bug.
+"It's a trial of one kitten," replied the Scarecrow; "but your manner is
+a trial to us all."
+"Let the Public Accuser continue," called Ozma from her throne, "and I
+pray you do not interrupt him."
+"The criminal who now sits before the court licking her paws," resumed
+the Woggle-Bug, "has long desired to unlawfully eat the fat piglet,
+which was no bigger than a mouse. And finally she made a wicked plan to
+satisfy her depraved appetite for pork. I can see her, in my mind's
+eye----"
+"What's that?" asked the Scarecrow.
+"I say I can see her in my mind's eye----"
+"The mind has no eye," declared the Scarecrow. "It's blind."
+"Your Highness," cried the Woggle-Bug, appealing to Ozma, "have I a
+mind's eye, or haven't I?"
+"If you have, it is invisible," said the Princess.
+"Very true," returned the Woggle-Bug, bowing. "I say I see the criminal,
+in my mind's eye, creeping stealthily into the room of our Ozma and
+secreting herself, when no one was looking, until the Princess had gone
+away and the door was closed. Then the murderer was alone with her
+helpless victim, the fat piglet, and I see her pounce upon the innocent
+creature and eat it up----"
+"Are you still seeing with your mind's eye?" enquired the Scarecrow.
+"Of course; how else could I see it? And we know the thing is true,
+because since the time of that interview there is no piglet to be found
+anywhere."
+"I suppose, if the cat had been gone, instead of the piglet, your mind's
+eye would see the piglet eating the cat," suggested the Scarecrow.
+"Very likely," acknowledged the Woggle-Bug. "And now, Fellow Citizens
+and Creatures of the Jury, I assert that so awful a crime deserves
+death, and in the case of the ferocious criminal before you--who is now
+washing her face--the death penalty should be inflicted nine times."
+There was great applause when the speaker sat down. Then the Princess
+spoke in a stern voice:
+"Prisoner, what have you to say for yourself? Are you guilty, or not
+guilty?"
+"Why, that's for you to find out," replied Eureka. "If you can prove I'm
+guilty, I'll be willing to die nine times, but a mind's eye is no proof,
+because the Woggle-Bug has no mind to see with."
+"Never mind, dear," said Dorothy.
+Then the Tin Woodman arose and said:
+"Respected Jury and dearly beloved Ozma, I pray you not to judge this
+feline prisoner unfeelingly. I do not think the innocent kitten can be
+guilty, and surely it is unkind to accuse a luncheon of being a murder.
+Eureka is the sweet pet of a lovely little girl whom we all admire, and
+gentleness and innocence are her chief virtues. Look at the kitten's
+intelligent eyes;" (here Eureka closed her eyes sleepily) "gaze at her
+smiling countenance!" (here Eureka snarled and showed her teeth) "mark
+the tender pose of her soft, padded little hands!" (Here Eureka bared
+her sharp claws and scratched at the bars of the cage.) "Would such a
+gentle animal be guilty of eating a fellow creature? No; a thousand
+times, no!"
+"Oh, cut it short," said Eureka; "you've talked long enough."
+"I'm trying to defend you," remonstrated the Tin Woodman.
+"Then say something sensible," retorted the kitten. "Tell them it would
+be foolish for me to eat the piglet, because I had sense enough to know
+it would raise a row if I did. But don't try to make out I'm too
+innocent to eat a fat piglet if I could do it and not be found out. I
+imagine it would taste mighty good."
+"Perhaps it would, to those who eat," remarked the Tin Woodman. "I
+myself, not being built to eat, have no personal experience in such
+matters. But I remember that our great poet once said:
+    "'To eat is sweet
+    When hunger's seat
+    Demands a treat
+    Of savory meat.'
+"Take this into consideration, friends of the Jury, and you will readily
+decide that the kitten is wrongfully accused and should be set at
+liberty."
+When the Tin Woodman sat down no one applauded him, for his arguments
+had not been very convincing and few believed that he had proved
+Eureka's innocence. As for the Jury, the members whispered to each other
+for a few minutes and then they appointed the Hungry Tiger their
+spokesman. The huge beast slowly arose and said:
+"Kittens have no consciences, so they eat whatever pleases them. The
+jury believes the white kitten known as Eureka is guilty of having eaten
+the piglet owned by Princess Ozma, and recommends that she be put to
+death in punishment of the crime."
+The judgment of the jury was received with great applause, although
+Dorothy was sobbing miserably at the fate of her pet. The Princess was
+just about to order Eureka's head chopped off with the Tin Woodman's axe
+when that brilliant personage once more arose and addressed her.
+"Your Highness," said he, "see how easy it is for a jury to be mistaken.
+The kitten could not have eaten your piglet--for here it is!"
+He took off his funnel hat and from beneath it produced a tiny white
+piglet, which he held aloft that all might see it clearly.
+Ozma was delighted and exclaimed, eagerly:
+"Give me my pet, Nick Chopper!"
+And all the people cheered and clapped their hands, rejoicing that the
+prisoner had escaped death and been proved to be innocent.
+As the Princess held the white piglet in her arms and stroked its soft
+hair she said: "Let Eureka out of the cage, for she is no longer a
+prisoner, but our good friend. Where did you find my missing pet, Nick
+Chopper?"
+"In a room of the palace," he answered.
+"Justice," remarked the Scarecrow, with a sigh, "is a dangerous thing to
+meddle with. If you hadn't happened to find the piglet, Eureka would
+surely have been executed."
+"But justice prevailed at the last," said Ozma, "for here is my pet, and
+Eureka is once more free."
+"I refuse to be free," cried the kitten, in a sharp voice, "unless the
+Wizard can do his trick with eight piglets. If he can produce but seven,
+then this it not the piglet that was lost, but another one."
+"Hush, Eureka!" warned the Wizard.
+"Don't be foolish," advised the Tin Woodman, "or you may be sorry for
+it."
+"The piglet that belonged to the Princess wore an emerald collar," said
+Eureka, loudly enough for all to hear.
+"So it did!" exclaimed Ozma. "This cannot be the one the Wizard gave
+me."
+"Of course not; he had nine of them, altogether," declared Eureka; "and
+I must say it was very stingy of him not to let me eat just a few. But
+now that this foolish trial is ended, I will tell you what really became
+of your pet piglet."
+At this everyone in the Throne Room suddenly became quiet, and the
+kitten continued, in a calm, mocking tone of voice:
+"I will confess that I intended to eat the little pig for my breakfast;
+so I crept into the room where it was kept while the Princess was
+dressing and hid myself under a chair. When Ozma went away she closed
+the door and left her pet on the table. At once I jumped up and told the
+piglet not to make a fuss, for he would be inside of me in half a
+second; but no one can teach one of these creatures to be reasonable.
+Instead of keeping still, so I could eat him comfortably, he trembled so
+with fear that he fell off the table into a big vase that was standing
+on the floor. The vase had a very small neck, and spread out at the top
+like a bowl. At first the piglet stuck in the neck of the vase and I
+thought I should get him, after all, but he wriggled himself through and
+fell down into the deep bottom part--and I suppose he's there yet."
+All were astonished at this confession, and Ozma at once sent an officer
+to her room to fetch the vase. When he returned the Princess looked down
+the narrow neck of the big ornament and discovered her lost piglet, just
+as Eureka had said she would.
+There was no way to get the creature out without breaking the vase, so
+the Tin Woodman smashed it with his axe and set the little prisoner
+free.
+Then the crowd cheered lustily and Dorothy hugged the kitten in her arms
+and told her how delighted she was to know that she was innocent.
+"But why didn't you tell us at first?" she asked.
+"It would have spoiled the fun," replied the kitten, yawning.
+Ozma gave the Wizard back the piglet he had so kindly allowed Nick
+Chopper to substitute for the lost one, and then she carried her own
+into the apartments of the palace where she lived. And now, the trial
+being over, the good citizens of the Emerald City scattered to their
+homes, well content with the day's amusement.
+CHAPTER 20.
+ZEB RETURNS TO THE RANCH
+Eureka was much surprised to find herself in disgrace; but she was, in
+spite of the fact that she had not eaten the piglet. For the folks of Oz
+knew the kitten had tried to commit the crime, and that only an accident
+had prevented her from doing so; therefore even the Hungry Tiger
+preferred not to associate with her. Eureka was forbidden to wander
+around the palace and was made to stay in confinement in Dorothy's room;
+so she began to beg her mistress to send her to some other place where
+she could enjoy herself better.
+Dorothy was herself anxious to get home, so she promised Eureka they
+would not stay in the Land of Oz much longer.
+The next evening after the trial the little girl begged Ozma to allow
+her to look in the enchanted picture, and the Princess readily
+consented. She took the child to her room and said: "Make your wish,
+dear, and the picture will show the scene you desire to behold."
+Then Dorothy found, with the aid of the enchanted picture, that Uncle
+Henry had returned to the farm in Kansas, and she also saw that both he
+and Aunt Em were dressed in mourning, because they thought their little
+niece had been killed by the earthquake.
+"Really," said the girl, anxiously, "I must get back as soon as poss'ble
+to my own folks."
+Zeb also wanted to see his home, and although he did not find anyone
+mourning for him, the sight of Hugson's Ranch in the picture made him
+long to get back there.
+"This is a fine country, and I like all the people that live in it," he
+told Dorothy. "But the fact is, Jim and I don't seem to fit into a
+fairyland, and the old horse has been begging me to go home again ever
+since he lost the race. So, if you can find a way to fix it, we'll be
+much obliged to you."
+"Ozma can do it, easily," replied Dorothy. "Tomorrow morning I'll go to
+Kansas and you can go to Californy."
+That last evening was so delightful that the boy will never forget it as
+long as he lives. They were all together (except Eureka) in the
+pretty rooms of the Princess, and the Wizard did some new tricks, and
+the Scarecrow told stories, and the Tin Woodman sang a love song in a
+sonorous, metallic voice, and everybody laughed and had a good time.
+Then Dorothy wound up Tik-tok and he danced a jig to amuse the company,
+after which the Yellow Hen related some of her adventures with the Nome
+King in the Land of Ev.
+The Princess served delicious refreshments to those who were in the
+habit of eating, and when Dorothy's bed time arrived the company
+separated after exchanging many friendly sentiments.
+Next morning they all assembled for the final parting, and many of the
+officials and courtiers came to look upon the impressive ceremonies.
+Dorothy held Eureka in her arms and bade her friends a fond good-bye.
+"You must come again, some time," said the little Wizard; and she
+promised she would if she found it possible to do so.
+"But Uncle Henry and Aunt Em need me to help them," she added, "so I
+can't ever be very long away from the farm in Kansas."
+Ozma wore the Magic Belt; and, when she had kissed Dorothy farewell and
+had made her wish, the little girl and her kitten disappeared in a
+twinkling.
+"Where is she?" asked Zeb, rather bewildered by the suddenness of it.
+"Greeting her uncle and aunt in Kansas, by this time," returned Ozma,
+with a smile.
+Then Zeb brought out Jim, all harnessed to the buggy, and took his seat.
+"I'm much obliged for all your kindness," said the boy, "and very
+grateful to you for saving my life and sending me home again after all
+the good times I've had. I think this is the loveliest country in the
+world; but not being fairies Jim and I feel we ought to be where we
+belong--and that's at the ranch. Good-bye, everybody!"
+He gave a start and rubbed his eyes. Jim was trotting along the
+well-known road, shaking his ears and whisking his tail with a contented
+motion. Just ahead of them were the gates of Hugson's Ranch, and Uncle
+Hugson now came out and stood with uplifted arms and wide open mouth,
+staring in amazement.
+"Goodness gracious! It's Zeb--and Jim, too!" he exclaimed. "Where in the
+world have you been, my lad?"
+"Why, in the world, Uncle," answered Zeb, with a laugh.
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+Three Friars, says a legend, hid themselves near the Witch Sabbath
+orgies that they might count the devils; but the Chief of these,
+discovering the friars, said--'Reverend Brothers, our army is such
+that if all the Alps, their rocks and glaciers, were equally divided
+among us, none would have a pound's weight.' This was in one Alpine
+valley. Any one who has caught but a glimpse of the world's Walpurgis
+Night, as revealed in Mythology and Folklore, must agree that this
+courteous devil did not overstate the case. Any attempt to catalogue
+the evil spectres which have haunted mankind were like trying to count
+the shadows cast upon the earth by the rising sun. This conviction
+has grown upon the author of this work at every step in his studies
+of the subject.
+In 1859 I contributed, as one of the American 'Tracts for the Times,'
+a pamphlet entitled 'The Natural History of the Devil.' Probably
+the chief value of that essay was to myself, and this in that
+its preparation had revealed to me how pregnant with interest and
+importance was the subject selected. Subsequent researches in the
+same direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealed how
+slight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain upon which
+that early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series of
+lectures for the Royal Institution on Demonology, it appeared to me
+that the best I could do was to print those lectures with some notes
+and additions; but after they were delivered there still remained with
+me unused the greater part of materials collected in many countries,
+and the phantasmal creatures which I had evoked would not permit me
+to rest from my labours until I had dealt with them more thoroughly.
+The fable of Thor's attempt to drink up a small spring, and his
+failure because it was fed by the ocean, seems aimed at such efforts
+as mine. But there is another aspect of the case which has yielded
+me more encouragement. These phantom hosts, however unmanageable as
+to number, when closely examined, present comparatively few types;
+they coalesce by hundreds; from being at first overwhelmed by their
+multiplicity, the classifier finds himself at length beating bushes to
+start a new variety. Around some single form--the physiognomy, it may
+be, of Hunger or Disease, of Lust or Cruelty--ignorant imagination
+has broken up nature into innumerable bits which, like mirrors of
+various surface, reflect the same in endless sizes and distortions;
+but they vanish if that central fact be withdrawn.
+In trying to conquer, as it were, these imaginary monsters, they
+have sometimes swarmed and gibbered around me in a mad comedy
+which travestied their tragic sway over those who believed in their
+reality. Gargoyles extended their grin over the finest architecture,
+cornices coiled to serpents, the very words of speakers started out of
+their conventional sense into images that tripped my attention. Only
+as what I believed right solutions were given to their problems were
+my sphinxes laid; but through this psychological experience it appeared
+that when one was so laid his or her legion disappeared also. Long ago
+such phantasms ceased to haunt my nerves, because I discovered their
+unreality; I am now venturing to believe that their mythologic forms
+cease to haunt my studies, because I have found out their reality.
+Why slay the slain? Such may be the question that will arise in the
+minds of many who see this book. A Scotch song says, 'The Devil is
+dead, and buried at Kirkcaldy;' if so, he did not die until he had
+created a world in his image. The natural world is overlaid by an
+unnatural religion, breeding bitterness around simplest thoughts,
+obstructions to science, estrangements not more reasonable than if
+they resulted from varying notions of lunar figures,--all derived from
+the Devil-bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and disbeliefs are of
+infernal instigation. Dogmas moulded in a fossil demonology make the
+foundation of institutions which divert wealth, learning, enterprise,
+to fictitious ends. It has not, therefore, been mere intellectual
+curiosity which has kept me working at this subject these many years,
+but an increasing conviction that the sequelæ of such superstitions are
+exercising a still formidable influence. When Father Delaporte lately
+published his book on the Devil, his Bishop wrote--'Reverend Father, if
+every one busied himself with the Devil as you do, the kingdom of God
+would gain by it.' Identifying the kingdom here spoken of as that of
+Truth, it has been with a certain concurrence in the Bishop's sentiment
+that I have busied myself with the work now given to the public.
+Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations
+from witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism.
+A college in the State of Ohio has adopted for its motto the words
+'Orient thyself.' This significant admonition to Western youth
+represents one condition of attaining truth in the science of
+mythology. Through neglect of it the glowing personifications and
+metaphors of the East have too generally migrated to the West only to
+find it a Medusa turning them to stone. Our prosaic literalism changes
+their ideals to idols. The time has come when we must learn rather to
+see ourselves in them: out of an age and civilisation where we live in
+habitual recognition of natural forces we may transport ourselves to a
+period and region where no sophisticated eye looks upon nature. The sun
+is a chariot drawn by shining steeds and driven by a refulgent deity;
+the stars ascend and move by arbitrary power or command; the tree is
+the bower of a spirit; the fountain leaps from the urn of a naiad. In
+such gay costumes did the laws of nature hold their carnival until
+Science struck the hour for unmasking. The costumes and masks have
+with us become materials for studying the history of the human mind,
+but to know them we must translate our senses back into that phase
+of our own early existence, so far as is consistent with carrying
+our culture with us.
+Without conceding too much to Solar mythology, it may be pronounced
+tolerably clear that the earliest emotion of worship was born out
+of the wonder with which man looked up to the heavens above him. The
+splendours of the morning and evening; the azure vault, painted with
+frescoes of cloud or blackened by the storm; the night, crowned with
+constellations: these awakened imagination, inspired awe, kindled
+admiration, and at length adoration, in the being who had reached
+intervals in which his eye was lifted above the earth. Amid the rapture
+of Vedic hymns to these sublimities we meet sharp questionings whether
+there be any such gods as the priests say, and suspicion is sometimes
+cast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the celestial spaces may
+have been those of ancestors, kings, and great men, but anterior to
+all forms was the poetic enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for
+them; and the crude cosmogonies of primitive science were probably
+caught up by this spirit, and consecrated as slowly as scientific
+generalisations now are.
+Our modern ideas of evolution might suggest the reverse of this--that
+human worship began with things low and gradually ascended to high
+objects; that from rude ages, in which adoration was directed to
+stock and stone, tree and reptile, the human mind climbed by degrees
+to the contemplation and reverence of celestial grandeurs. But the
+accord of this view with our ideas of evolution is apparent only. The
+real progress seems here to have been from the far to the near, from
+the great to the small. It is, indeed, probably inexact to speak of
+the worship of stock and stone, weed and wort, insect and reptile,
+as primitive. There are many indications that such things were by no
+race considered intrinsically sacred, nor were they really worshipped
+until the origin of their sanctity was lost; and even now, ages
+after their oracular or symbolical character has been forgotten, the
+superstitions that have survived in connection with such insignificant
+objects point to an original association with the phenomena of the
+heavens. No religions could, at first glance, seem wider apart than
+the worship of the serpent and that of the glorious sun; yet many
+ancient temples are covered with symbols combining sun and snake,
+and no form is more familiar in Egypt than the solar serpent standing
+erect upon its tail, with rays around its head.
+Nor is this high relationship of the adored reptile found only in
+regions where it might have been raised up by ethnical combinations as
+the mere survival of a savage symbol. William Craft, an African who
+resided for some time in the kingdom of Dahomey, informed me of the
+following incident which he had witnessed there. The sacred serpents
+are kept in a grand house, which they sometimes leave to crawl in
+their neighbouring grounds. One day a negro from some distant region
+encountered one of these animals and killed it. The people learning
+that one of their gods had been slain, seized the stranger, and having
+surrounded him with a circle of brushwood, set it on fire. The poor
+wretch broke through the circle of fire and ran, pursued by the crowd,
+who struck him with heavy sticks. Smarting from the flames and blows,
+he rushed into a river; but no sooner had he entered there than the
+pursuit ceased, and he was told that, having gone through fire and
+water, he was purified, and might emerge with safety. Thus, even in
+that distant and savage region, serpent-worship was associated with
+fire-worship and river-worship, which have a wide representation in
+both Aryan and Semitic symbolism. To this day the orthodox Israelites
+set beside their dead, before burial, the lighted candle and a basin
+of pure water. These have been associated in rabbinical mythology with
+the angels Michael (genius of Water) and Gabriel (genius of Fire);
+but they refer both to the phenomenal glories and the purifying
+effects of the two elements as reverenced by the Africans in one
+direction and the Parsees in another.
+Not less significant are the facts which were attested at the
+witch-trials. It was shown that for their pretended divinations they
+used plants--as rue and vervain--well known in the ancient Northern
+religions, and often recognised as examples of tree-worship; but it
+also appeared that around the cauldron a mock zodiacal circle was
+drawn, and that every herb employed was alleged to have derived its
+potency from having been gathered at a certain hour of the night or
+day, a particular quarter of the moon, or from some spot where sun or
+moon did or did not shine upon it. Ancient planet-worship is, indeed,
+still reflected in the habit of village herbalists, who gather their
+simples at certain phases of the moon, or at certain of those holy
+periods of the year which conform more or less to the pre-christian
+festivals.
+These are a few out of many indications that the small and senseless
+things which have become almost or quite fetishes were by no means such
+at first, but were mystically connected with the heavenly elements
+and splendours, like the animal forms in the zodiac. In one of the
+earliest hymns of the Rig-Veda it is said--'This earth belongs to
+Varuna (Ouranos) the king, and the wide sky: he is contained also in
+this drop of water.' As the sky was seen reflected in the shining curve
+of a dew-drop, even so in the shape or colour of a leaf or flower,
+the transformation of a chrysalis, or the burial and resurrection
+of a scarabæus' egg, some sign could be detected making it answer in
+place of the typical image which could not yet be painted or carved.
+The necessities of expression would, of course, operate to invest
+the primitive conceptions and interpretations of celestial phenomena
+with those pictorial images drawn from earthly objects of which the
+early languages are chiefly composed. In many cases that are met
+in the most ancient hymns, the designations of exalted objects are
+so little descriptive of them, that we may refer them to a period
+anterior to the formation of that refined and complex symbolism by
+which primitive religions have acquired a representation in definite
+characters. The Vedic comparisons of the various colours of the dawn
+to horses, or the rain-clouds to cows, denotes a much less mature
+development of thought than the fine observation implied in the
+connection of the forked lightning with the forked serpent-tongue and
+forked mistletoe, or symbolisation of the universe in the concentric
+folds of an onion. It is the presence of these more mystical and
+complex ideas in religions which indicate a progress of the human
+mind from the large and obvious to the more delicate and occult, and
+the growth of the higher vision which can see small things in their
+large relationships. Although the exaltation in the Vedas of Varuna
+as king of heaven, and as contained also in a drop of water, is in
+one verse, we may well recognise an immense distance in time between
+the two ideas there embodied. The first represents that primitive
+pantheism which is the counterpart of ignorance. An unclassified
+outward universe is the reflection of a mind without form and void:
+it is while all within is as yet undiscriminating wonder that the
+religious vesture of nature will be this undefined pantheism. The
+fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has not yet been
+tasted. In some of the earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda, the Maruts,
+the storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun; Yama,
+king of Death, is equally adored with the goddess of Dawn. 'No real
+foe of yours is known in heaven, nor in earth.' 'The storms are thy
+allies.' Such is the high optimism of sentences found even in sacred
+books which elsewhere mask the dawn of the Dualism which ultimately
+superseded the harmony of the elemental Powers. 'I create light
+and I create darkness, I create good and I create evil.' 'Look unto
+Yezdan, who causeth the shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what
+must be the result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god
+and fire-god, and their innumerable co-ordinate divinities, shall
+be divided by discord. When each shall have become associated with
+some earthly object or fact, he or she will appear as friend or foe,
+and their connection with the sources of human pleasure and pain will
+be reflected in collisions and wars in the heavens. The rebel clouds
+will be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored Maruts will be
+no longer storm-heroes with unsheathed swords of lightning, marching
+as the retinue of Indra, but fire-breathing monsters--Vritras and
+Ahis,--and the morning and evening shadows from faithful watch-dogs
+become the treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cerberus. The
+vehement antagonisms between animals and men and of tribe against
+tribe, will be expressed in the conception of struggles among gods,
+who will thus be classified as good or evil deities.
+This was precisely what did occur. The primitive pantheism was broken
+up: in its place the later ages beheld the universe as the arena of
+a tremendous conflict between good and evil Powers, who severally,
+in the process of time, marshalled each and everything, from a world
+to a worm, under their flaming banners.
+THE GENESIS OF DEMONS.
+Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations:
+Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and
+evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil.
+The first pantheon of each race was built of intellectual
+speculations. In a moral sense, each form in it might be described
+as more or less demonic; and, indeed, it may almost be affirmed that
+religion, considered as a service rendered to superhuman beings,
+began with the propitiation of demons, albeit they might be called
+gods. Man found that in the earth good things came with difficulty,
+while thorns and weeds sprang up everywhere. The evil powers seemed to
+be the strongest. The best deity had a touch of the demon in him. The
+sun is the most beneficent, yet he bears the sunstroke along with
+the sunbeam, and withers the blooms he calls forth. The splendour,
+the might, the majesty, the menace, the grandeur and wrath of the
+heavens and the elements were blended in these personifications,
+and reflected in the trembling adoration paid to them. The flattering
+names given to these powers by their worshippers must be interpreted
+by the costly sacrifices with which men sought to propitiate them. No
+sacrifice would have been offered originally to a purely benevolent
+power. The Furies were called the Eumenides, 'the well-meaning,'
+and there arises a temptation to regard the name as preserving the
+primitive meaning of the Sanskrit original of Erinyes, namely, Saranyu,
+which signifies the morning light stealing over the sky. But the
+descriptions of the Erinyes by the Greek poets--especially of Æschylus,
+who pictures them as black, serpent-locked, with eyes dropping blood,
+and calls them hounds--show that Saranyu as morning light, and thus
+the revealer of deeds of darkness, had gradually been degraded into
+a personification of the Curse. And yet, while recognising the name
+Eumenides as euphemistic, we may admire none the less the growth of
+that rationalism which ultimately found in the epithet a suggestion of
+the soul of good in things evil, and almost restored the beneficent
+sense of Saranyu. 'I have settled in this place,' says Athene in the
+'Eumenides' of Æschylus, 'these mighty deities, hard to be appeased;
+they have obtained by lot to administer all things concerning men. But
+he who has not found them gentle knows not whence come the ills of
+life.' But before the dread Erinyes of Homer's age had become the
+'venerable goddesses' (semnai theai) of popular phrase in Athens,
+or the Eumenides of the later poet's high insight, piercing their
+Gorgon form as portrayed by himself, they had passed through all the
+phases of human terror. Cowering generations had tried to soothe the
+remorseless avengers by complimentary phrases. The worship of the
+serpent, originating in the same fear, similarly raised that animal
+into the region where poets could invest it with many profound and
+beautiful significances. But these more distinctly terrible deities
+are found in the shadowy border-land of mythology, from which we may
+look back into ages when the fear in which worship is born had not yet
+been separated into its elements of awe and admiration, nor the heaven
+of supreme forces divided into ranks of benevolent and malevolent
+beings; and, on the other hand, we may look forward to the ages in
+which the moral consciousness of man begins to form the distinctions
+between good and evil, right and wrong, which changes cosmogony into
+religion, and impresses every deity of the mind's creation to do his
+or her part in reflecting the physical and moral struggles of mankind.
+The intermediate processes by which the good and evil were detached,
+and advanced to separate personification, cannot always be traced, but
+the indications of their work are in most cases sufficiently clear. The
+relationship, for instance, between Baal and Baal-zebub cannot be
+doubted. The one represents the Sun in his glory as quickener of
+Nature and painter of its beauty, the other the insect-breeding power
+of the Sun. Baal-zebub is the Fly-god. Only at a comparatively recent
+period did the deity of the Philistines, whose oracle was consulted
+by Ahaziah (2 Kings i.), suffer under the reputation of being 'the
+Prince of Devils,' his name being changed by a mere pun to Beelzebul
+(dung-god). It is not impossible that the modern Egyptian mother's
+hesitation to disturb flies settling on her sleeping child, and the
+sanctity attributed to various insects, originated in the awe felt
+for him. The title Fly-god is parallelled by the reverent epithet
+apomuios, applied to Zeus as worshipped at Elis, [1] the Myiagrus
+deus of the Romans, [2] and the Myiodes mentioned by Pliny. [3] Our
+picture is probably from a protecting charm, and evidently by the god's
+believers. There is a story of a peasant woman in a French church who
+was found kneeling before a marble group, and was warned by a priest
+that she was worshipping the wrong figure--namely, Beelzebub. 'Never
+mind,' she replied, 'it is well enough to have friends on both
+sides.' The story, though now only ben trovato, would represent the
+actual state of mind in many a Babylonian invoking the protection of
+the Fly-god against formidable swarms of his venomous subjects.
+Not less clear is the illustration supplied by Scandinavian
+mythology. In Sæmund's Edda the evil-minded Loki says:--
+Odin! dost thou remember
+When we in early days
+Blended our blood together?
+The two became detached very slowly; for their separation implied
+the crumbling away of a great religion, and its distribution into
+new forms; and a religion requires, relatively, as long to decay
+as it does to grow, as we who live under a crumbling religion have
+good reason to know. Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj,
+in an address in London, said, 'The Indian Pantheon has many millions
+of deities, and no space is left for the Devil.' He might have added
+that these deities have distributed between them all the work that
+the Devil could perform if he were admitted. His remark recalled to
+me the Eddaic story of Loki's entrance into the assembly of gods in
+the halls of Oegir. Loki--destined in a later age to be identified
+with Satan--is angrily received by the deities, but he goes round
+and mentions incidents in the life of each one which show them to be
+little if any better than himself. The gods and goddesses, unable to
+reply, confirm the cynic's criticisms in theologic fashion by tying
+him up with a serpent for cord.
+The late Theodore Parker is said to have replied to a Calvinist who
+sought to convert him--'The difference between us is simple: your god
+is my devil.' There can be little question that the Hebrews, from whom
+the Calvinist inherited his deity, had no devil in their mythology,
+because the jealous and vindictive Jehovah was quite equal to any
+work of that kind,--as the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, bringing
+plagues upon the land, or deceiving a prophet and then destroying him
+for his false prophecies. [4] The same accommodating relation of the
+primitive deities to all natural phenomena will account for the absence
+of distinct representatives of evil of the most primitive religions.
+The earliest exceptions to this primeval harmony of the gods,
+implying moral chaos in man, were trifling enough: the occasional
+monster seems worthy of mention only to display the valour of the god
+who slew him. But such were demon-germs, born out of the structural
+action of the human mind so soon as it began to form some philosophy
+concerning a universe upon which it had at first looked with simple
+wonder, and destined to an evolution of vast import when the work of
+moralising upon them should follow.
+Let us take our stand beside our barbarian, but no longer savage,
+ancestor in the far past. We have watched the rosy morning as it
+waxed to a blazing noon: then swiftly the sun is blotted out, the
+tempest rages, it is a sudden night lit only by the forked lightning
+that strikes tree, house, man, with angry thunder-peal. From an
+instructed age man can look upon the storm blackening the sky not as
+an enemy of the sun, but one of its own superlative effects; but some
+thousands of years ago, when we were all living in Eastern barbarism,
+we could not conceive that a luminary whose very business it was to
+give light, could be a party to his own obscuration. We then looked
+with pity upon the ignorance of our ancestors, who had sung hymns to
+the storm-dragons, hoping to flatter them into quietness; and we came
+by irresistible logic to that Dualism which long divided the visible,
+and still divides the moral, universe into two hostile camps.
+This is the mother-principle out of which demons (in the ordinary
+sense of the term) proceeded. At first few, as distinguished from the
+host of deities by exceptional harmfulness, they were multiplied with
+man's growth in the classification of his world. Their principle of
+existence is capable of indefinite expansion, until it shall include
+all the realms of darkness, fear, and pain. In the names of demons,
+and in the fables concerning them, the struggles of man in his ages of
+weakness with peril, want, and death, are recorded more fully than in
+any inscriptions on stone. Dualism is a creed which all superficial
+appearances attest. Side by side the desert and the fruitful land,
+the sunshine and the frost, sorrow and joy, life and death, sit
+weaving around every life its vesture of bright and sombre threads,
+and Science alone can detect how each of these casts the shuttle
+to the other. Enemies to each other they will appear in every realm
+which knowledge has not mastered. There is a refrain, gathered from
+many ages, in William Blake's apostrophe to the tiger:--
+Tiger! tiger! burning bright
+In the forests of the night;
+What immortal hand or eye
+Framed thy fearful symmetry?
+In what distant deeps or skies
+Burned that fire within thine eyes?
+On what wings dared he aspire?
+What the hand dared seize the fire?
+When the stars threw down their spears
+And water heaven with their tears,
+Did he smile his work to see?
+Did he who made the lamb make thee?
+That which one of the devoutest men of genius whom England has produced
+thus asked was silently answered in India by the serpent-worshipper
+kneeling with his tongue held in his hand; in Egypt, by Osiris seated
+on a throne of chequer. 
+It is necessary to distinguish clearly between the Demon and the Devil,
+though, for some purposes, they must be mentioned together. The world
+was haunted with demons for many ages before there was any embodiment
+of their spirit in any central form, much less any conception of
+a Principle of Evil in the universe. The early demons had no moral
+character, not any more than the man-eating tiger. There is no outburst
+of moral indignation mingling with the shout of victory when Indra
+slays Vritra, and Apollo's face is serene when his dart pierces the
+Python. It required a much higher development of the moral sentiment
+to give rise to the conception of a devil. Only that intensest light
+could cast so black a shadow athwart the world as the belief in a
+purely malignant spirit. To such a conception--love of evil for its
+own sake--the word Devil is limited in this work; Demon is applied to
+beings whose harmfulness is not gratuitous, but incidental to their
+own satisfactions.
+Deity and Demon are from words once interchangeable, and the latter has
+simply suffered degradation by the conventional use of it to designate
+the less beneficent powers and qualities, which originally inhered
+in every deity, after they were detached from these and separately
+personified. Every bright god had his shadow, so to say; and under
+the influence of Dualism this shadow attained a distinct existence
+and personality in the popular imagination. The principle having
+once been established, that what seemed beneficent and what seemed
+the reverse must be ascribed to different powers, it is obvious that
+the evolution of demons must be continuous, and their distribution
+co-extensive with the ills that flesh is heir to.
+DEGRADATION.
+The degradation of deities--Indicated in names--Legends of their
+fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of demons and devils.
+The atmospheric conditions having been prepared in the human mind for
+the production of demons, the particular shapes or names they would
+assume would be determined by a variety of circumstances, ethnical,
+climatic, political, or even accidental. They would, indeed, be rarely
+accidental; but Professor Max Müller, in his notes to the Rig-Veda,
+has called attention to a remarkable instance in which the formation of
+an imposing mythological figure of this kind had its name determined
+by what, in all probability, was an accident. There appears in the
+earliest Vedic hymns the name of Aditi, as the holy Mother of many
+gods, and thrice there is mentioned the female name Diti. But there
+is reason to believe that Diti is a mere reflex of Aditi, the a being
+dropped originally by a reciter's license. The later reciters, however,
+regarding every letter in so sacred a book, or even the omission of a
+letter, as of eternal significance, Diti--this decapitated Aditi--was
+evolved into a separate and powerful being, and, every niche of
+beneficence being occupied by its god or goddess, the new form was at
+once relegated to the newly-defined realm of evil, where she remained
+as the mother of the enemies of the gods, the Daityas. Unhappily this
+accident followed the ancient tendency by which the Furies and Vices
+have, with scandalous constancy, been described in the feminine gender.
+The close resemblance between these two names of Hindu mythology,
+severally representing the best and the worst, may be thus accidental,
+and only serve to show how the demon-forming tendency, after it began,
+was able to press even the most trivial incidents into its service. But
+generally the names of demons, and for whole races of demons, report
+far more than this; and in no inquiry more than that before us is it
+necessary to remember that names are things. The philological facts
+supply a remarkable confirmation of the statements already made
+as to the original identity of demon and deity. The word 'demon'
+itself, as we have said, originally bore a good instead of an evil
+meaning. The Sanskrit deva, 'the shining one,' Zend daêva, correspond
+with the Greek theos, Latin deus, Anglo-Saxon Tiw; and remain in
+'deity,' 'deuce' (probably; it exists in Armorican, teuz, a phantom),
+'devel' (the gipsy name for God), and Persian div, demon. The Demon
+of Socrates represents the personification of a being still good, but
+no doubt on the path of decline from pure divinity. Plato declares
+that good men when they die become 'demons,' and he says 'demons
+are reporters and carriers between gods and men.' Our familiar word
+bogey, a sort of nickname for an evil spirit, comes from the Slavonic
+word for God--bog. Appearing here in the West as bogey (Welsh bwg,
+a goblin), this word bog began, probably, as the 'Baga' of cuneiform
+inscriptions, a name of the Supreme Being, or possibly the Hindu
+'Bhaga,' Lord of Life. In the 'Bishop's Bible' the passage occurs,
+'Thou shalt not be afraid of any bugs by night:' the word has been
+altered to 'terror.'  When we come to the particular names of demons,
+we find many of them bearing traces of the splendours from which they
+have declined. 'Siva,' the Hindu god of destruction, has a meaning
+('auspicious') derived from Svi, 'thrive'--thus related ideally to
+Pluto, 'wealth'--and, indeed, in later ages, appears to have gained
+the greatest elevation. In a story of the Persian poem Masnavi,
+Ahriman is mentioned with Bahman as a fire-fiend, of which class are
+the Magian demons and the Jinns generally; which, the sanctity of
+fire being considered, is an evidence of their high origin. Avicenna
+says that the genii are ethereal animals. Lucifer--light-bearing--is
+the fallen angel of the morning star. Loki--the nearest to an evil
+power of the Scandinavian personifications--is the German leucht,
+or light. Azazel--a word inaccurately rendered 'scape-goat' in the
+Bible--appears to have been originally a deity, as the Israelites
+were originally required to offer up one goat to Jehovah and
+another to Azazel, a name which appears to signify the 'strength
+of God.' Gesenius and Ewald regard Azazel as a demon belonging
+to the pre-Mosaic religion, but it can hardly be doubted that the
+four arch-demons mentioned by the Rabbins--Samaël, Azazel, Asaël,
+and Maccathiel--are personifications of the elements as energies
+of the deity. Samaël would appear to mean the 'left hand of God;'
+Azazel, his strength; Asaël, his reproductive force; and Maccathiel,
+his retributive power, but the origin of these names is doubtful..
+Although Azazel is now one of the Mussulman names for a devil,
+it would appear to be nearly related to Al Uzza of the Koran,
+one of the goddesses of whom the significant tradition exists,
+that once when Mohammed had read, from the Sura called 'The Star,'
+the question, 'What think ye of Allat, Al Uzza, and Manah, that
+other third goddess?' he himself added, 'These are the most high
+and beauteous damsels, whose intercession is to be hoped for,' the
+response being afterwards attributed to a suggestion of Satan. Belial is merely a word for godlessness; it has become personified
+through the misunderstanding of the phrase in the Old Testament by
+the translators of the Septuagint, and thus passed into christian
+use, as in 2 Cor. vi. 15, 'What concord hath Christ with Belial?' The
+word is not used as a proper name in the Old Testament, and the late
+creation of a demon out of it may be set down to accident.
+Even where the names of demons and devils bear no such traces of
+their degradation from the state of deities, there are apt to be
+characteristics attributed to them, or myths connected with them,
+which point in the direction indicated. Such is the case with Satan,
+of whom much must be said hereafter, whose Hebrew name signifies
+the adversary, but who, in the Book of Job, appears among the sons
+of God. The name given to the devil in the Koran--Eblis--is almost
+certainly diabolos Arabicised; and while this Greek word is found
+in Pindar [7] (5th century B.C.), meaning a slanderer, the fables
+in the Koran concerning Eblis describe him as a fallen angel of the
+highest rank.
+One of the most striking indications of the fall of demons from heaven
+is the wide-spread belief that they are lame. Mr. Tylor has pointed
+out the curious persistence of this idea in various ethnical lines of
+development. [8] Hephaistos was lamed by his fall when hurled by Zeus
+from Olympos; and it is not a little singular that in the English
+travesty of limping Vulcan, represented in Wayland the Smith, there should appear the suggestion, remarked by Mr. Cox, of the name
+'Vala' (coverer), one of the designations of the dragon destroyed by
+Indra. 'In Sir Walter Scott's romance,' says Mr. Cox, 'Wayland is a
+mere impostor, who avails himself of a popular superstition to keep
+up an air of mystery about himself and his work, but the character to
+which he makes pretence belongs to the genuine Teutonic legend.' The Persian demon Aeshma--the Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit--appears
+with the same characteristic of lameness in the 'Diable Boiteux'
+of Le Sage. The christian devil's clubbed or cloven foot is notorious.
+Even the horns popularly attributed to the devil may possibly have
+originated with the aureole which indicates the glory of his 'first
+estate.' Satan is depicted in various relics of early art wearing the
+aureole, as in a miniature of the tenth century (from Bible No. 6,
+Bib. Roy.), given by M. Didron. [11] The same author has shown that
+Pan and the Satyrs, who had so much to do with the shaping of our
+horned and hoofed devil, originally got their horns from the same
+high source as Moses in the old Bibles, [12] and in the great statue
+of him at Rome by Michel Angelo.
+It is through this mythologic history that the most powerful
+demons have been associated in the popular imagination with stars,
+planets,--Ketu in India, Saturn and Mercury the 'Infortunes,'--comets,
+and other celestial phenomena. The examples of this are so numerous
+that it is impossible to deal with them here, where I can only hope
+to offer a few illustrations of the principles affirmed; and in this
+case it is of less importance for the English reader, because of the
+interesting volume in which the subject has been specially dealt
+with. [13] Incidentally, too, the astrological demons and devils
+must recur from time to time in the process of our inquiry. But it
+will probably be within the knowledge of some of my readers that the
+dread of comets and of meteoric showers yet lingers in many parts
+of Christendom, and that fear of unlucky stars has not passed away
+with astrologers. There is a Scottish legend told by Hugh Miller
+of an avenging meteoric demon. A shipmaster who had moored his
+vessel near Morial's Den, amused himself by watching the lights
+of the scattered farmhouses. After all the rest had gone out one
+light lingered for some time. When that light too had disappeared,
+the shipmaster beheld a large meteor, which, with a hissing noise,
+moved towards the cottage. A dog howled, an owl whooped; but when
+the fire-ball had almost reached the roof, a cock crew from within
+the cottage, and the meteor rose again. Thrice this was repeated,
+the meteor at the third cock-crow ascending among the stars. On the
+following day the shipmaster went on shore, purchased the cock, and
+took it away with him. Returned from his voyage, he looked for the
+cottage, and found nothing but a few blackened stones. Nearly sixty
+years ago a human skeleton was found near the spot, doubled up as
+if the body had been huddled into a hole: this revived the legend,
+and probably added some of those traits which make it a true bit of
+mosaic in the mythology of Astræa. 
+The fabled 'fall of Lucifer' really signifies a process similar to
+that which has been noticed in the case of Saranyu. The morning star,
+like the morning light, as revealer of the deeds of darkness, becomes
+an avenger, and by evolution an instigator of the evil it originally
+disclosed and punished. It may be remarked also that though we have
+inherited the phrase 'Demons of Darkness,' it was an ancient rabbinical
+belief that the demons went abroad in darkness not only because it
+facilitated their attacks on man, but because being of luminous forms,
+they could recognise each other better with a background of darkness.
+THE ABGOTT.
+The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity
+--Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--
+Sheik Adi--Why demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty.
+The phenomena of the transformation of deities into demons meet the
+student of Demonology at every step. We shall have to consider many
+examples of a kind similar to those which have been mentioned in the
+preceding chapter; but it is necessary to present at this stage of our
+inquiry a sufficient number of examples to establish the fact that in
+every country forces have been at work to degrade the primitive gods
+into types of evil, as preliminary to a consideration of the nature
+of those forces.
+We find the history of the phenomena suggested in the German word for
+idol, Abgott--ex-god. Then we have 'pagan,' villager, and 'heathen,' of
+the heath, denoting those who stood by their old gods after others had
+transferred their faith to the new. These words bring us to consider
+the influence upon religious conceptions of the struggles which have
+occurred between races and nations, and consequently between their
+religions. It must be borne in mind that by the time any tribes had
+gathered to the consistency of a nation, one of the strongest forces of
+its coherence would be its priesthood. So soon as it became a general
+belief that there were in the universe good and evil Powers, there
+must arise a popular demand for the means of obtaining their favour;
+and this demand has never failed to obtain a supply of priesthoods
+claiming to bind or influence the præternatural beings. These
+priesthoods represent the strongest motives and fears of a people,
+and they were gradually intrenched in great institutions involving
+powerful interests. Every invasion or collision or mingling of races
+thus brought their respective religions into contact and rivalry;
+and as no priesthood has been known to consent peaceably to its own
+downfall and the degradation of its own deities, we need not wonder
+that there have been perpetual wars for religious ascendency. It
+is not unusual to hear sects among ourselves accusing each other
+of idolatry. In earlier times the rule was for each religion to
+denounce its opponent's gods as devils. Gregory the Great wrote
+to his missionary in Britain, the Abbot Mellitus, second Bishop of
+Canterbury, that 'whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice
+many oxen in honour of demons, let them celebrate a religious and
+solemn festival, and not slay the animals to the devil (diabolo),
+but to be eaten by themselves to the glory of God.' Thus the devotion
+of meats to those deities of our ancestors which the Pope pronounces
+demons, which took place chiefly at Yule-tide, has survived in our
+more comfortable Christmas banquets. This was the fate of all the
+deities which Christianity undertook to suppress. But it had been the
+habit of religions for many ages before. They never denied the actual
+existence of the deities they were engaged in suppressing. That would
+have been too great an outrage upon popular beliefs, and might have
+caused a reaction; and, besides, each new religion had an interest
+of its own in preserving the basis of belief in these invisible
+beings. Disbelief in the very existence of the old gods might be
+followed by a sceptical spirit that might endanger the new. So the
+propagandists maintained the existence of native gods, but called
+them devils. Sometimes wars or intercourse between tribes led to their
+fusion; the battle between opposing religions was drawn, in which case
+there would be a compromise by which several deities of different
+origin might continue together in the same race and receive equal
+homage. The differing degrees of importance ascribed to the separate
+persons of the Hindu triad in various localities of India, suggest
+it as quite probable that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva signalled in their
+union the political unity of certain districts in that country. The blending of the names of Confucius and Buddha, in many Chinese
+and Japanese temples, may show us an analogous process now going on,
+and, indeed, the various ethnical ideas combined in the christian
+Trinity render the fact stated one of easy interpretation. But the
+religious difficulty was sometimes not susceptible of compromise. The
+most powerful priesthood carried the day, and they used every ingenuity
+to degrade the gods of their opponents. Agathodemons were turned into
+kakodemons. The serpent, worshipped in many lands, might be adopted
+as the support of sleeping Vishnu in India, might be associated with
+the rainbow ('the heavenly serpent') in Persia, but elsewhere was
+cursed as the very genius of evil.
+The operation of this force in the degradation of deities, is
+particularly revealed in the Sacred Books of Persia. In that country
+the great religions of the East would appear to have contended
+against each other with especial fury, and their struggles were
+probably instrumental in causing one or more of the early migrations
+into Western Europe. The great celestial war between Ormuzd and
+Ahriman--Light and Darkness--corresponded with a violent theological
+conflict, one result of which is that the word deva, meaning 'deity'
+to Brahmans, means 'devil' to Parsees. The following extract from
+the Zend-Avesta will serve as an example of the spirit in which the
+war was waged:--
+'All your devas are only manifold children of the Evil Mind--and the
+great one who worships the Saoma of lies and deceits; besides the
+treacherous acts for which you are notorious throughout the seven
+regions of the earth.
+'You have invented all the evil which men speak and do, which is
+indeed pleasant to the Devas, but is devoid of all goodness, and
+therefore perishes before the insight of the truth of the wise.
+'Thus you defraud men of their good minds and of their immortality
+by your evil minds--as well through those of the Devas as that of the
+Evil Spirit--through evil deeds and evil words, whereby the power of
+liars grows.' 
+That is to say--Ours is the true god: your god is a devil.
+The Zoroastrian conversion of deva (deus) into devil does not
+alone represent the work of this odium theologicum. In the early
+hymns of India the appellation asuras is given to the gods. Asura
+means a spirit. But in the process of time asura, like dæmon, came
+to have a sinister meaning: the gods were called suras, the demons
+asuras, and these were said to contend together. But in Persia the
+asuras--demonised in India--retained their divinity, and gave the name
+ahura to the supreme deity, Ormuzd (Ahura-mazda). On the other hand,
+as Mr. Muir supposes, Varenya, applied to evil spirits of darkness in
+the Zendavesta, is cognate with Varuna (Heaven); and the Vedic Indra,
+king of the gods--the Sun--is named in the Zoroastrian religion as
+one of the chief councillors of that Prince of Darkness.
+But in every country conquered by a new religion, there will always be
+found some, as we have seen, who will hold on to the old deity under
+all his changed fortunes. These will be called 'bigots,' but still they
+will adhere to the ancient belief and practise the old rites. Sometimes
+even after they have had to yield to the popular terminology, and call
+the old god a devil, they will find some reason for continuing the
+transmitted forms. It is probable that to this cause was originally
+due the religions which have been developed into what is now termed
+Devil-worship. The distinct and avowed worship of the evil Power in
+preference to the good is a rather startling phenomenon when presented
+baldly; as, for example, in a prayer of the Madagascans to Nyang,
+author of evil, quoted by Dr. Réville:--'O Zamhor! to thee we offer no
+prayers. The good god needs no asking. But we must pray to Nyang. Nyang
+must be appeased. O Nyang, bad and strong spirit, let not the thunder
+roar over our heads! Tell the sea to keep within its bounds! Spare,
+O Nyang, the ripening fruit, and dry not up the blossoming rice! Let
+not our women bring forth children on the accursed days. Thou reignest,
+and this thou knowest, over the wicked; and great is their number,
+O Nyang. Torment not, then, any longer the good folk!' 
+This is natural, and suggestive of the criminal under sentence of
+death, who, when asked if he was not afraid to meet his God, replied,
+'Not in the least; it's that other party I'm afraid of.' Yet it
+is hardly doubtful that the worship of Nyang began in an era when
+he was by no means considered morally baser than Zamhor. How the
+theory of Dualism, when attained, might produce the phenomenon
+called Devil-worship, is illustrated in the case of the Yezedis, now
+so notorious for that species of religion. Their theory is usually
+supposed to be entirely represented by the expression uttered by one
+of them, 'Will not Satan, then, reward the poor Izedis, who alone have
+never spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?' But these words are significant, no doubt, of the underlying fact:
+they 'have never spoken ill of' the Satan they worship. The Mussulman
+calls the Yezedi a Satan-worshipper only as the early Zoroastrian held
+the worshipper of a deva to be the same. The chief object of worship
+among the Yezedis is the figure of the bird Taous, a half-mythical
+peacock. Professor King of Cambridge traces the Taous of this Assyrian
+sect to the "sacred bird called a phoenix," whose picture, as seen
+by Herodotus (ii. 73) in Egypt, is described by him as 'very like an
+eagle in outline and in size, but with plumage partly gold-coloured,
+partly crimson,' and which was said to return to Heliopolis every
+five hundred years, there to burn itself on the altar of the Sun,
+that another might rise from its ashes. [19] Now the name Yezedis
+is simply Izeds, genii; and we are thus pointed to Arabia, where we
+find the belief in genii is strongest, and also associated with the
+mythical bird Rokh of its folklore. There we find Mohammed rebuking
+the popular belief in a certain bird called Hamâh, which was said to
+take form from the blood near the brain of a dead person and fly away,
+to return, however, at the end of every hundred years to visit that
+person's sepulchre. But this is by no means Devil-worship, nor can we
+find any trace of that in the most sacred scripture of the Yezedis,
+the 'Eulogy of Sheikh Adi.' This Sheikh inherited from his father,
+Moosafir, the sanctity of an incarnation of the divine essence,
+of which he (Adi) speaks as 'the All-merciful.'
+By his light he hath lighted the lamp of the morning.
+I am he that placed Adam in my Paradise.
+I am he that made Nimrod a hot burning fire.
+I am he that guided Ahmet mine elect,
+I gifted him with my way and guidance.
+Mine are all existences together,
+They are my gift and under my direction.
+I am he that possesseth all majesty,
+And beneficence and charity are from my grace,
+I am he that entereth the heart in my zeal;
+And I shine through the power of my awfulness and majesty.
+I am he to whom the lion of the desert came:
+I rebuked him and he became like stone.
+I am he to whom the serpent came,
+And by my will I made him like dust.
+I am he that shook the rock and made it tremble,
+And sweet water flowed therefrom from every side. 
+The reverence shown in these sacred sentences for Hebrew names and
+traditions--as of Adam in Paradise, Marah, and the smitten rock--and
+for Ahmet (Mohammed), appears to have had its only requital in the
+odious designation of the worshippers of Taous as Devil-worshippers,
+a label which the Yezedis perhaps accepted as the Wesleyans and
+Friends accepted such names as 'Methodist' and 'Quaker.'
+Mohammed has expiated the many deities he degraded to devils by being
+himself turned to an idol (mawmet), a term of contempt all the more
+popular for its resemblance to 'mummery.' Despite his denunciations
+of idolatry, it is certain that this earlier religion represented
+by the Yezedis has never been entirely suppressed even among his own
+followers. In Dr. Leitner's interesting collection there is a lamp,
+which he obtained from a mosque, made in the shape of a peacock,
+and this is but one of many similar relics of primitive or alien
+symbolism found among the Mussulman tribes.
+The evolution of demons and devils out of deities was made real to
+the popular imagination in every country where the new religion found
+art existing, and by alliance with it was enabled to shape the ideas
+of the people. The theoretical degradation of deities of previously
+fair association could only be completed where they were presented to
+the eye in repulsive forms. It will readily occur to every one that a
+rationally conceived demon or devil would not be repulsive. If it were
+a demon that man wished to represent, mere euphemism would prevent its
+being rendered odious. The main characteristic of a demon--that which
+distinguishes it from a devil--is, as we have seen, that it has a real
+and human-like motive for whatever evil it causes. If it afflict or
+consume man, it is not from mere malignancy, but because impelled by
+the pangs of hunger, lust, or other suffering, like the famished wolf
+or shark. And if sacrifices of food were offered to satisfy its need,
+equally we might expect that no unnecessary insult would be offered in
+the attempt to portray it. But if it were a devil--a being actuated
+by simple malevolence--one of its essential functions, temptation,
+would be destroyed by hideousness. For the work of seduction we might
+expect a devil to wear the form of an angel of light, but by no means
+to approach his intended victim in any horrible shape, such as would
+repel every mortal. The great representations of evil, whether imagined
+by the speculative or the religious sense, have never been, originally,
+ugly. The gods might be described as falling swiftly like lightning
+out of heaven, but in the popular imagination they retained for a long
+time much of their splendour. The very ingenuity with which they were
+afterwards invested with ugliness in religious art, attests that there
+were certain popular sentiments about them which had to be distinctly
+reversed. It was because they were thought beautiful that they must be
+painted ugly; it was because they were--even among converts to the new
+religion--still secretly believed to be kind and helpful, that there
+was employed such elaboration of hideous designs to deform them. The
+pictorial representations of demons and devils will come under a more
+detailed examination hereafter: it is for the present sufficient to
+point out that the traditional blackness or ugliness of demons and
+devils, as now thought of, by no means militates against the fact
+that they were once the popular deities. The contrast, for instance,
+between the horrible physiognomy given to Satan in ordinary christian
+art, and the theological representation of him as the Tempter, is
+obvious. Had the design of Art been to represent the theological
+theory, Satan would have been portrayed in a fascinating form. But
+the design was not that; it was to arouse horror and antipathy for
+the native deities to which the ignorant clung tenaciously. It was
+to train children to think of the still secretly-worshipped idols
+as frightful and bestial beings. It is important, therefore, that we
+should guard against confusing the speculative or moral attempts of
+mankind to personify pain and evil with the ugly and brutal demons and
+devils of artificial superstition, oftenest pictured on church walls.
+Sometimes they are set to support water-spouts, often the brackets
+that hold their foes, the saints. It is a very ancient device. Our
+figure 2 is from the handle of a chalice in possession of Sir James
+Hooker, meant probably to hold the holy water of Ganges.  These are
+not genuine demons or devils, but carefully caricatured deities. Who
+that looks upon the grinning bestial forms carved about the roof of any
+old church--as those on Melrose Abbey and York Cathedral [21]--w